Introduction

Abstract

Ireland¹ has been transformed in the 1990s. From being one of Europe’s economic and social laggards, performing well below potential since independence in 1922 and in decline relative to virtually all European states, east and west (Lee, 1989), it has in the 1990s become a showcase of successful development — Europe’s Tiger Economy held up internationally as one of the few countries which has made it in the new global e-commerce economy (Ohmae, 2000). As official delegations from countries around the world beat a path to the doors of Irish ministers, their advisers and the country’s development agencies,² Irish economists are holding Ireland up as ‘a role model for development’ (Bradley, 2000, 22), offering ‘lessons for the periphery’ (Fitz Gerald, 2000, 55) and predicting that, over the next 15 years, ‘Ireland may achieve a standard of living among the highest within the EU’ (Fitz Gerald, 2000, 54).

If I had to pick one country as a harbinger of the coming shift in national economies, it would be Ireland

Kenichi Ohmae, 2000, 119