On the first day of his official visit to Japan Taoiseach Brian Cowen has denied any falling out with Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, and said Ireland needs to look at Japan in order to get the economy going on.

On rumours of a dispute between himself and Minister Lenihan he said “There’s nothing to it. It’s pure skullduggery. We’re communicating as well as we ever did.

Cowen - Turning Japanese

Sure just last week we were out for lunch in L’Ecrivain and I said to Mary Coughlan, ‘Mary, ask Brian to pass me the salt would you?’ and she did and Brian said ‘Tell him to give me up the butter there’ and in the end didn’t I get the salt and didn’t he get the butter. Everything’s fine”.

After meetings with some of Japanese industry’s most important CEOs, including the heads of Sony, Nintendo, Toyota and Kendo Nagasaki, the Taoiseach said there were lessons for Ireland to learn. “You look at how efficient these businesses are and compare them to way the operate in Ireland and it’s chalk and cheese.

Here they’re cramming people onto trains with sticks so they can get to work. Half the time we’re calling in sick. Here if an employee performs badly he’ll commit Hara-kiri such is his shame at letting company down. At home they just don’t care. I think we need to take stock of ourselves and if, at first, it means we have to commit Hara-kiri on people to give them the example then I think that’s what we’ve got to do”.

However, the National Suicide Prevention Association has called Cowen’s remarks ‘tasteless’ and ‘objectionable in the extreme’. Lorcan McDougall, head of the NSPA, said “It’s an insult to all those people who have killed themselves and those who are thinking about killing themselves.

Suicide is a disease, we’ve got to realise that before we can do more to prevent it. We’re still waiting on a response from the government about our proposal to dump thousands of tons of salt into the Liffey to make it like the red sea. It’s hard to drown yourself when you float like a dinghy”.

The Taoiseach’s visit will continue over the course of the week and will culminate with a banquet at the Irish Embassy before he flies back in the government jet, Enola Gay.