You've got to be a hustler if you want to get on!

The news that the Kentz Corporation, formerly MJ Kent are in trouble is bad news, and not only for the Clonmel area where the company maintained its tribal base. The big transnational engineering firm was, and indeed still is, a model of how a mobile, quickwitted and technically gifted island people can bond together to compete on an international stage.

One can view the company’s lifespan from a number of perspectives. There is the straight hardbidding hardnosed capitalist side, getting out there and mixing it in the big marketplaces with the world’s best .. or worst.

But there is another, more important view, which sees the company as one like any other big Irish contractor, with one important difference: instead of building supermarkets and silos in Ireland, they did so all around the world.

And so, gifted people who might have had to emigrate in order to find employment commensurate with their talents were able to work for an Irish company, albeit in an international arena.

This is the other scenario, where we get out there collectively and hustle our asses, instead of doing so individually. And, receiver’s reports notwithstanding, it seems to have worked, with the company being valued at £300 million before last weekend.

Of course, nothing lasts. But one hopes that general goodwill can bind the operation up again. A lot of people are employed; they and their families and communities need the money coming in. But equally, we all need that company as a model of what can be done to capitalise on our exceptional human resources.

As an example of what I mean by hustling our asses on a transnational stage, an acquaintance who has recently returned from the west of France tells me that there are skills shortages in certain occupational areas in Brittany.

That’s right. Although they report a 10% unemployment rate, there are quite a few unfilled jobs there, mainly in construction, transport and, if memory serves me correctly, paramedicine.

So, if you have a modicum of French, you could try there. On the other hand, if there were a number of Skill Bank Co-Operatives around the country which could handle all the negotiations (i.e: function as an employer contracting out a service, i.e: workers) then you would have a clean organisational way of matching Irish skills with overseas employment opportunities, without personal pain and dislocation.

And it wouldn’t be emigration, it would be a temporary overseas placement. Semantics? Perhaps, but these conceptual factors are important. The most depressing effects of unemployment are found in the marrow and the mind.

The same traveller also encountered a bunch of technicians from Telecom Eireann who were working in Brittany. Hustling our asses again.

Of course, there are many local routes to pursue as well, especially in cultural tourism. But no path can be ignored. And team raiding the world for work is one we should all be endorsing with a vengeance.

This attitude, of course, is rooted in self-confidence. The Irish have not yet managed to encompass this quality with real conviction, though many do, on both an individual and collective level.

I’m not certain what the watershed was .. Soccer? U2? Oscars? Lughnasa? The fat wallets of the incredibly youthful whizzkids who tackled London’s financial services industry in the late 80s, and who found they knew more than their colleagues? Fashion? The internationalisation of Ireland?

Or is it mixing it with the bigger players in the European Union? Or the wave of positive self-recognition that followed Mary Robinson’s election?

I don’t know. Except that one senses a growing assurance: a fundamental characteristic at this point. The only thing missing is the full-employment philosophy that would generalise the opportunities to feel good.

Make no mistake: Ireland has many many problems, but the Irish are genuinely among the best in whatever field they choose. And as an internationally popular English-speaking country, it is uniquely placed to.. well, to hustle its ass to the benefit of all its people!

Mind you, all they’ll get for their pains from the still-unrepentant and unreformed taxers is an even bigger hand in their pockets.

It seems a shame that so many good ideas (and believe me, there’s a lot of them) for creativity and enterprise and industry and employment run aground because the procedural and narrow-focussed mindset of the government’s financial and social welfare engineers cannot conceive of allowing the same monies to be allocated in different ways.

By which I mean, for example, the dole. It could be spread around far more creatively. It could even be incorporated (as wages) in the seed funding for local enterprises. But will it?

Which brings me to another beef: local government. Until a very foolish political party abolished rates in 1977, local government had an independent source of income. Councils could undertake projects in their own areas. they could also employ staff, especially the poorly qualified individuals who are not unhappy with relatively low-level and casual employment.

But when there is a suggestion that local governments should once again be given independent local funding (which would be offset against government subventions) we have the usual hue and cry from those who never want to pay for anything.

Phew! I’m turning into Angry From Leixlip!!!

But listen, if councils were able to levy local taxes, not only would services be better, but also more people would be employed. Which would bring down the dole queues, which would in turn, bring down the tax bill ..

The point in all this rather fractious observation is that there is little point in waiting for what the Man With An Evening Press would call the Guvvemint to wave a big magic wand and find a solution to all the problems. They’re as much at sea as the rest of us.

The solutions are to be found nearer home, in our collective self-esteem and reciprocal commitment, in our sense of community, if you like.

That isn’t simply pie-in-the-sky. There are answers. But we have to ask the right questions. The Kentz Corporation, for a very long time, asked the right questions and came up with an effective set of answers. With luck, the firm, or parts of it, will continue to do so.

What we all need is more of the same acute questioning and similar enterprising answers, supported by an understanding state sector and a third banking force.

So . . . who’s first for the breach?

And finally, for all those with Morrison visas, when you look at the weather in the States, and the earthquakes . . . are you sure?

On the other hand, with Mother Nature having unleashed $40 billion worth of damage, you can bet your arse that there’ll be jobs aplenty in Construction. Now, what we need is a bunch of internationally-based Irish engineering and construction companies to get in there bidding, and to import Irish staff to do the work.

Which, I suppose, brings us back to the Kentz Corporation...