ADDRESS BY MR. NOEL TREACY, T.D., MINISTER FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & COMMERCE, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE PRICE WATERHOUSE COOPERS 1999 TECHNOLOGY FORECAST IN FITZER'S CAFE, RDS ON FRIDAY, 20TH NOVEMBER 1998 @ 7.45AM.

It gives me great pleasure to be with you all here this morning for the public launch of the Price Waterhouse Coopers 1999 Technology Forecast.

I am aware that there is close interaction between your organisation and our Department on a range of issues of interest to industry. This type of interaction has facilitated our Department in developing and pursuing policy issues at EU level which have greatly assisted the competitiveness of the IT sector in Ireland.

The 1999 Price Waterhouse Coopers Technology Forecast will be of great assistance to high-tech companies in Ireland by providing them with a snapshot of the current state of technology and by forecasting the growth areas and trends of the future. This publication, prepared with the assistance of a variety of subject experts, covers a very broad range of technology, outlines where the particular technology is at and where it is likely to go in the medium term.

In Ireland the technology sector is a core element of our national economy, employing approximately 50,000 people. Ireland has many of the key Global players in the technology sector including Intel, Dell, Gateway, Microsoft, 3Com. and others.

Recent years have also seen the growth of a vibrant indigenous sector. Irish software companies are recognised as leading global players in such areas as finance, electronic commerce, Internet applications, telecommunications and software tools.

There is no doubt that we live in a rapidly changing world which is constantly adapting to the fast pace of technological developments.

The 1999 Technology Forecast focuses particularly on the explosive growth of the Internet. Currently, the amount of traffic carried over the Internet is doubling every 100 days and within the next two years the amount of data carried over the world's telecommunications infra-structure is expected to exceed that of voice.

I note that the Forecast comments that "in the long run, asking how a company can make money from the Internet will seem as meaningless as asking how it can make money from the telephone - both will then have become an accepted part of every-day business.

By and large, our record for adapting to change in this country is very good. Irish business has probably coped with more technological change in the last twenty years than in the previous two hundred years. And it has coped with it well. We have not shied away from technology. Instead, we have embraced it and exploited it to help close the gap in living standards between ourselves and our European neighbours.

We often hear about the threat posed to this or that sector by technological change. This, I believe, is the wrong approach. We should think in terms of opportunities, not threats. The rapid development of new technologies presents huge opportunities and it is my aim is to ensure that we in Ireland are well positioned to exploit those opportunities. Technological innovation creates new enterprises and transforms old ones. It determines the means of competitive success and drives global competition.

Our Government has a crucial role to play in ensuring that Ireland keeps fully up to speed with the technological revolution.

Technology and technological innovation are the outputs of a series of factors such as the education system, national research capabilities - whether in the universities or in the State sector - public and private expenditure on science, technology and innovation and a preparedness by the investment sector to fund technology based firms.

All of these elements combined - which are known as the National System of Innovation - must be equally supported and developed if Ireland is to sustain its current level of economic performance by competing effectively with new products and new competition in the global market. It is those companies which have a high skilled workforce, invest in R&D and apply technology to produce modern innovative products which will create the economic growth and employment of the future. We need only look at the sectors driving new job announcements and recent company expansions to be convinced of this fact.

However, we must not become complacent. It is not enough to say that present technological developments are driving current economic growth. We also need to plan to ensure that we continue developing capabilities in those technologies which will underpin important sectors of the economy in the future.

Last March, I asked the Irish Council for Science Technology and Innovation (ICSTI) to undertake Ireland's first ever Technology Foresight Initiative. It is a process, increasingly used by Governments of industrially advanced economies to systematically identify emerging technologies that will be critical to our long term competitiveness. In other words, we are identifying the actions which we need to take TODAY to ensure that we are well placed to exploit future opportunities, tomorrow. This exercise is examining a number of important sectors, including ICTs.

One of the major features of the Foresight exercise is that it facilitates participation, inputs and discussion from all of the 'players' in the National Science, Technology and Innovation system - education and training establishments; research institutes; enterprise; trade unions; representative bodies and organisations; Government Departments; State Agencies and Local Authorities.

This is a partnership approach, which in many spheres, Ireland of the 90's has embraced very successfully to the benefit of all. The results of Technology Foresight will become available in January next and the Government will consider the recommendations in the final Report as part of its overall strategy on Post 1999 funding and Ireland's future economic development generally as we move into the new Millennium.

I have no doubt that your Technology Forecasts, the latest edition of which is launched here this morning, will be of great value to ICSTI in our own Foresight exercise.