Lies, Lies and damned statistics

Jackie Maguire, CE, Meath County Council

We know how to work hard and laugh hard

We work

There are so many things to consider when thinking about your next business location. Previously I’ve written about international access to airports, internal access via motorways, affordability and availability of land, houses or business premises and of course our highly educated workforce – all available here in Meath. But there’s something else and that’s productivity. It’s something I feel that may not be common knowledge outside of Ireland – how hard Irish people work.

We talk

Yes we like to talk, we take time to inquire after each other and we enjoy socialising, but it may surprise some that when it comes to getting the head down and getting the job done, Ireland is a world leader. And before I’m accused of fiddling with figures I am very familiar with those comments attributed to (but not actually said by) American Mark Twain, about the three kinds of lies; Lies, Lies and Damned Statistics. But sometimes you just need stats. Business people need to have some kind of way to comparing apples with apples, or in this case productivity across jurisdictions – to confirm their business case.

We produce

I was intrigued by that claim that we are a highly productive nation here in Ireland so I’ve just been looking up the Eurostat figures and the conference speaker was right. Using Index Points (no…I don’t know their make up, I’ll leave that to the good people in Eurostat) it shows that if the US is at just short of 107 on the Index and the UK is at just over 102. However, Ireland is at a whopping 131.7 (having topped out at an even more impressive 136 Index Points during the boom) – so roughly a third more productive than either the US or the UK.

We make a big difference

Again, it’s not always fair to compare across jurisdictions and across industries but if we accept that the Eurostat numbers are put together with no country bias, then something good must be happening here. And that’s the point that economic commentator was making at his conference. Yes, our business taxes are attractive. Yes, we tick all the ‘inside EU’ boxes, but he said, businesses should also factor productivity in Ireland into their equation. It does make a big difference.

We work to live

It may be something to do with our healthy respect for a work/life balance. Just look at the range of sports on offer within Meath – sports including hurling that some of you may never have heard of (our Economic Development Team can explain the rules of hurling to US citizens ) But sport is very, very important to us in Meath. Just like work. Another reason for business to think to #MakeItMeath