A SURVEY of senior Irish executives has found 67 per cent of respondents believe prospects for the economy are better now than they were at this time last year.
Only 14 per cent of respondents said they believed the economy’s prospects were worse than this time last year.
Out of six options put to them for the most urgent problem facing government, the greatest number of respondents (43 per cent), chose creating a better climate for job creation. The next most favoured choices were public sector reform (21 per cent) and reducing the deficit below 3 per cent (17 per cent).
A total of 86 per cent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the level of public sector reform to date.
When asked whether they would be willing to sit on State boards, 65 per cent said they would. Almost a third (32 per cent) said they would be willing to go on full-time secondment to a State organisation for a period of up to six months.
The survey was conducted by Amárach Research on behalf of executive search group Merc Partners.
More than half of respondents (56 per cent) said they would be willing to allow someone from their top team go on secondment to a State organisation for a period of up to six months.
Slightly more than a quarter of respondents (26 per cent) said they would be willing to go on secondment to a State organisation for more than six months.
Only three per cent of respondents believed the Irish economy would disimprove over the coming year, with 17 per cent believing it would stay unchanged and the rest believing it would improve.
Barry O’Connor, managing partner with Merc Partners, said the number of executives who said they were willing to go on secondment to a State organisation was one of the highlights of the survey results.
He said the Government’s recently published public sector reform programme would require significant change management expertise, and that the study suggested executives were more than willing to give up some of their time to assist.
The Government’s decision to advertise vacancies on State boards was a welcome initiative, he said, adding he believed it should look at more innovative ways of tapping into the significant pool of executives willing to serve.
Consideration should be given, he said, to linking with business organisations with significant expertise in their membership, or to adopting more proactive approaches.
The study was conducted in October and involved 418 respondents, of whom 85 per cent were in the private sector.
