Housing is a “drag on investment”, he told the IIEA, but he acknowledged that the State’s success in attracting multinationals made it hard to argue that these problems had prevented companies from coming in here. The former IDA boss said that the more pertinent question was probably how it would affect future investment.
“I think all of them believed that it was better that Ireland was moving with the OECD, because otherwise Ireland would be isolated and the companies themselves risked being isolated,” he explained. He told the audience at Friday’s seminar, Foreign Direct Investment – Continued Opportunity or Growing Challenge?, that any new government, irrespective of its politics, would have to have regard for what drives the economy.