Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 8, between lines 15 and 16, to insert the following: “(3) The Agency may, in consultation with a Minister of the Government having functions in relation to a sector of the economy, develop proposals for investment in that sector in order to support economic activity and employment.”.

This relates to the investment strategy that the NTMA would intend to deploy in terms of the use of those funds. What I have in mind in the context of this amendment is to give the NTMA a more explicit remit in the development of our regions. When I speak about the development of our regions, I speak primarily around the requirement to invest in our indigenous SME base. We are only too well aware of our excessive reliance on multinational corporations both for quality jobs and in terms of our revenue stream. The reality is that we are discussing the creation of this future Ireland fund and the infrastructure, climate and nature investment fund because of Ireland's success in terms of the surplus funds we are generating from what might considered to be excess corporation tax receipts.

Enterprise Ireland is one of Europe's most successful indigenous enterprise agencies in indigenous job creation and supports for the indigenous SME base. The majority of those jobs last year, as has been the case in recent years, were created outside of Dublin. It is an important agency in the context of regional development. The Minister is aware - the entire system is aware and the evidence is there - that the Irish SME base is not as productive and has proven not to be as innovative as the countries to which we like to compare ourselves. We have a productivity, competitiveness and innovation challenge. Given the precarity of corporation tax receipts and the implied precarity around FDI, it is important that we use the funds we have and will have in this fund to explicitly target those investments at the SME base, making it more productive, competitive and innovative and ensuring there are decent jobs in high-performing and high-potential Irish companies into the future, notwithstanding state aid rules. We cannot anticipate where EU state aid rules are going to be by the time we can draw down funds from the future Ireland fund to invest in our indigenous enterprise base. There is a logic to explicitly saying this evening that this legislation must explicitly say that we are open and prepared to invest in our SME base into the future. There is also a logic, when talking about excess corporation tax receipts from firms that have done well in and been good for this country in the context of foreign direct investment, that we invest some of that surplus in our indigenous enterprise base into the future.