Deirdre Clune (Fine Gael)

-----in contrast to his colleague in the other House where it was dismissed out of hand. It is a wide-ranging document which deserves to be debated in this House. I suggest we debate it under the four headings of indigenous business; international start-ups and attr multinationals; areas with high potential; and improving our competitiveness. The debate would be more far-reaching if we were to divide it up into different areas for discussion over a period of weeks. The Leader might consider this suggestion.

There are many elements to the plan which contains 270 proposals across 15 Departments and 32 State agencies. While I accept some of the proposals are not new, they had been left sitting on the shelf and not implemented. In fact, as noted by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, yesterday, the microfinance proposal had been made by the previous Government and that when he took office, he found it needed to be taken down and put into action. That is just one of many.