Road, rail and air services are not competitive and the failure to invest will affect the ability to continue to attract inward investment, the president of the Institute of Industrial Engineers has said.
At the institute's annual conference in Co Clare, Mr Seamus O'Sullivan said fundamental changes in approach were essential "if we are to address the chaos that is our principal road network and, for the western seaboard in particular, our inferior and costly air access. A modern competitive state is not reflected, with major traffic jams on all main routes and towns that cannot handle modern haulage vehicles".
He told 150 delegates that private enterprise should be involved in the development of the infrastructure between the principal cities. "We are a peripheral nation and speedy and efficient access to markets is fundamental to competitiveness. Private enterprise participation will ensure adequate funding and timely completion of critical projects."
Mr O'Sullivan said cost control must be maintained, a key element of which was wage discipline. National wage agreements benefited everyone, with net takehome pay improving by 30 per cent in the past 10 years. "Production efficiency improvement has outpaced our competitors, with our productivity growing annually at 5.2 per cent, compared to the EU average of 2.1 per cent."
He said national agreements had worked and he hoped they would continue to be a factor in striving for competitiveness. Mr Detlef Becker, a consultant mechanical engineer, said only a small number of Irish engineering companies could be classed as world-class players and they depended mainly on the currently distorted Irish market. They were not competitive in a world market and would have to take appropriate action.
He said leading economists said there had been no increase in overall productivity in industry here in the last five years and growth was due only to increased employment, not to increased efficiency.