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Investment in Qualityinterpreted in Chapters 1 and 2. Overall, Ireland’s dramaticeconomic performance in the 1990s was caused and sustained bythree main factors:●●The national policy and institutional framework, which wasconsistent, highly focused on competitiveness and employmentcreation,innovative and problem-solving;An export sector that was greatly expanded and increasinglyconcentrated in high-value, high-growth market segments; and● The European Union, because it increased market accessthrough creation of the single market and negotiation of WTOagreements, created a level playing field through re-regulation,provided a relatively stable monetary environment andsupported Ireland’s infrastructural and social development.As discussed in Chapter 2 above, Ireland’s social evolution in thepast decade was shaped by economic expansion and also insignificant ways by the legacy of the past and by public policy.3.3.2 Trusting Ourselves: Revising Means and GoalsA critical aspect of vision is clear sight of how public policy, thesocial partners and others have influenced the economy and society,and how they can influence it in future. Over recent decades theCouncil and others developed a particular view of what a successfuleconomy would look like, what role public policy has in promotingeconomic and social development, the nature and role of socialpartnership, the desirable and likely pattern of enterprise-levelpartnership, the contribution that EU membership can make and thesocial patterns and social policies that would be evident in aprosperous economy. Our view on these issues was, in largemeasure, derived from study of the patterns of economic and sociallife, and public policy, found in the richer states that we aspired tocatch up with, and was often described as a superior ‘model’.Now that a significant degree of economic and social catch up hasbeen achieved, a more successful economy, society and publicsystem looks significantly different from the model that was142