Ground Floor/Sheila O'Flanagan: Before the Republic joined the EU, I'm sure there were people sitting in Frankfurt who worried about the possibility of floods of poor Irish migrants arriving and snapping jobs from under the noses of German workers.

For our part, EU accession opened up the possibilities of growth and prosperity on our own doorstep, with new markets for our goods and a dollop of cash from the regional development funds to help us on our way. It took time, but we got there.

We were in a better position 31 years ago than the new members are now. Then, the founder countries - particularly Germany - were strong economic forces within Europe and the world.

Now those countries have become symbolic of a sclerosis within the heart of "old Europe", grappling with ageing populations, generous welfare states and economies that seem to grow at the rate of an ambling tortoise.

There is much to be negative about regarding the euro zone's economic performance over the past five years. As an economic entity, Europe has been reactive, allowing its economic health to be dictated by the rise and fall in US economic fortunes.

Brussels has become synonymous with bureaucracy. The European Central Bank ( ECB) is all talk and no action.

But for current member-states, the main concerns are not about the ECB's perennial reluctance to cut rates while still talking about weakening domestic demand, but those potential floods of economic migrants, all looking to take jobs and fleece the social-welfare systems.

As far as I recall, in the 1980s we supplied vast numbers of economic migrants to continental Europe.

Most people who emigrate do so to find work and make a better life. New ideas from people who have not been wandering around the corridors of Brussels for the past 30 years could encourage welcome changes.

There is no reason to fear change, only our reaction to it. And that's still very old-fashioned.

The world's markets embrace change because of the opportunities which accompany new businesses and new brands. There have been plenty of those over the past 30 years. The ultimate accolade for a brand is that its name becomes the verb synonymous with what it does.

More people talk about "hoovering" instead of vacuum cleaning even today, when the Hoover brand is jostling for space on the shelves.

Someone doing a search on the net is now "googling". In 30 years, will we still refer to the search process as googling, even if a better search engine is developed?

The Google flotation has brought warm and fuzzy feelings back to Silicon Valley, where the inhabitants have been battered by the fallout from the dotcom failures. Many of them are looking to the Google launch as a marker that an economic recovery is really under way.

Presumably, Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, will feel even warmer and fuzzier after they lodge their expected billions. Whether they and their shareholders will feel good in the years to come is debatable.

Google is different from many of the dotcom era's shiniest ideas. For starters, it is profitable, posting a profit of $105 million (€86.5 million) on a revenue stream of nearly $1 billion last year. Most of Silicon Valley's previous offerings had a history of deep losses when they floated.

Secondly, the shares are being auctioned off without the benefit of the plethora of Wall Street bankers that accompanied so many other flotations.

Messrs Page and Brin hope to avoid the dizzy first-day gains that looked so great but only flattered to deceive in the past.

They've published An Owners' Manual for Google Shareholders, setting out their ethos. The prospectus is full of the warnings associated with all dotcom ventures, reminding potential investors that the company is still young, that it derives about 95 per cent of its revenue from online advertising, which is an immature industry, and that it faces significant competition.

But despite that, potential shareholders (all in the US - overseas investors are unlikely to be eligible) are inundating banks with requests for information.

The founders may well want to keep their particular corporate ethos unchanged but things will inevitably be different when new investors come on board. Investors want a quick return for their money and they'll put up with a bit of quirkiness in the boardroom only as long as the profit margin continues to show an upward slope.

Messrs Brin and Page have said that they don't intend to massage the figures to show the smooth quarterly growth graphs so beloved of Wall Street analysts. In which case, the investors can be assured of a less-than-smooth ride for the share price.

They've also said that they'll manage for the long term. However, investors often say they want long-term steady growth but what they really want is to turn a quick buck.

The Class A and Class B share setup means that more power will remain with current management. But new investors will ultimately want changes.

The next 30 years will be interesting.