The Guilt of an Expat

The events of the last couple weeks in Ireland are nothing less than shocking. So much so that it's knocked me out of the blogging ennui that I found myself in recently. There's so much to say about the mess we've gotten ourselves into that I don't really know where to start. However start I must.

The one thing that has struck me is how negative everything is. Amid all this talk of bailouts, cuts and austerity measures; there has been nothing positive. No talk of spurring on the economy. No talk of rejuvenation. No talk of how to bring the economy out of its death throws and return it to prosperity. I understand that if there was any talk of such lofty ideals it would almost certainly have been drowned out by the cacophony of negativity coming from the media, analysts and commentators in the last few days. However there just seems to be a lack of anything positive to say.

All of this is having a particular effect on myself. Every time I read something about the state of Ireland's finances, there's this little pang of guilt inside me. So given that it's been on the front page of every (real) newspaper, it would be accurate to say that I've been feeling quite bad about abandoning the sinking ship when I did. I try to console myself and tell myself that logically, I saved the state money by moving as I was in receipt of Job Seeker's Allowance. I still feel though that I should be doing something.

What can we do? I have this idea. Unfortunately, I have no idea of how to make it happen or even if I did, I don't think I'd be the person with the most suitable skill set. So with that set of caveats out of the way I can get into the meat of it.

What does Ireland need? Ireland needs money, jobs, good news. In short Ireland needs entrepreneurs. Irish people creating our own jobs, our own success stories would do quite a bit to life the morale of people. The idea is to collect Irish expats together to form essentially a venture capital company aimed solely at sponsoring new Irish companies. In the current climate it should be easy to get the venture registered as a charity in various countries and then those charities are part owners of the company in Ireland.

Its an easy story to sell to people, to try to get people involved in; Irish people pulling together to dig ourselves out of this hole. Ex-pats doing something for the ol' sod and all that. More importantly, I feel that we've become a little too reliant on foreign direct investment. Not just to invest, but to make the jobs. I don't know many people whose response to unemployment is to take the bull by the horns and try to make something happen for themselves. We need to change that culture. Not only that but it's another way of channelling that much desired FDI through takeovers. Believe me, in the tech business; all you need is a good a idea and to know the right people to get the word out there; and Google (or Apple or some of the other big players) will probably buy you up.

I just wish I could make it happen.