There’s a recent post from Francine Hardaway about her attendance at a breakfast with Bill Harris, in his role as the new CEO of Science Foundation Arizona (which doesn’t appear to have a website yet).
Unfortunately, Ms. Hardaway, like some of the other Arizona or US-based commentators I’ve referred to before, falls into the hubris trap:
He is moving here from Ireland, where he turned an entire country around by heading up Science Foundation Ireland and fostering greater cooperation between universities, industry, and the economic development organizations.
Now, while Bill has done great things, and has managed to oversee a huge transformation in the university sector, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that he has “turned an entire country around”. I would suggest that SFI is a (positive) symptom of a country turing around, rather than the cause of it. Ms. Hardaway goes on to state that:
When I visited Ireland in 1991, it was mostly beautiful vistas and sheep, with very poor people.
Now come on! Where did she visit? This statement makes it sound like we were a nation of sheep herders stuck in the 19th century (or earlier). While it’s fair to say that in 1991 Ireland was certainly behind the EU average GDP per capita (something in the region of 75%), that’s a far cry from “very poor”.
According to gapminder, in 1991 Ireland had a GDP of $12,500 per capita. The United Kingdom, our nearest neighbour had a GDP of $16,830 per capita giving Ireland of 1991 a GDP per capita of 74% of the UK. For reference, in 2004 (the last year for which gapminder has figures), Ireland has a GDP of $34.310 p.c. compared with $33,360 p.c. for the UK (or 102%). I would expect that the 2006 figure would show an even larger difference, seeing as Ireland has continued to grow its economy more strongly than the UK (and indeed most of the rest of the developed world).
So, while Ireland has certainly progressed in leaps and bounds since 1991, I don’t think it’s fair to say that we were “very poor people” in 1991.
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