Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Fitzpatrick, Ms Suonperä and Mr. O'Brien for coming to the meeting today. I appreciate the discussion. It was important that they came. Last year they had a very significant influence regarding the area of additional voluntary contributions, AVCs, and that was an IBEC proposal. It was two years old at that stage but they made a presentation to the committee and many members took it on and tried to get the message across, as I am sure the Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform did as well. The Jobs Plus scheme also came through from the witnesses and the Small Firms Association as regards trying to target those schemes. It is worth our while to invite them to appear before the committee to discuss initiatives that we can try to take on and drive.

The issue of trying to get all the information together for business people is something we have discussed a few times at the committee, including with the witnesses. The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is working on that document and I understand the Taoiseach's office is trying to finish putting it together. We believe it will be very presentable and will show all the different services across government to help people in business and in employment. The local enterprise offices, LEOs, will help. If they are implemented correctly, they should be one-stop-shops to provide that type of service and advice.

I believe we need to sell our schemes. Until the day we have someone going into a business to sell the various initiatives, they will not work fully. We have to believe in them. Sometimes we might be afraid there will be too much take-up and we do not talk about them in case people go for them. However, we need to believe in them and push them because they will create jobs. There are many good initiatives available if we push them. Working with the witnesses, it is to be hoped we can do more on that.

I have two or three questions. I welcome the witnesses' key messages and I hope they are all implemented in terms of domestic demand and keeping the cost of business down, even in the area of research and development. Must we do more to help businesses in exporting? Can we do more as regards information and networking? I attended a good event recently when Consulting Ireland launched its cluster initiative in Enterprise Ireland. It is a programme that will run for the next nine or ten months and it aims to help businesses win contracts abroad. Every day, there are 200,000 contracts to be won and Ireland does not get its fair share of them. It appears we are not chasing them. I realise many of them are through consulting as well, but many of them are public sector contracts. We are ideally situated for them and they could lead on to more business. Do we need to do more to encourage that type of work and to encourage network building? If the witnesses cannot respond to that today, perhaps they could respond to us later. Last year's budget tried to help people exporting into new markets, but we probably need to do more. We can never do enough, I suppose, so perhaps the witnesses would give us their thoughts on that.

In the same area of business, export credit insurance still seems to be an issue. The committee has been told it is not, but I believe it is. Businesses are telling us they have problems and concerns trading abroad. There are different initiatives in that regard aside from straightforward export credit insurance. Irish companies do not use invoice discounting or factoring of debts. There is a very low take-up of that service in this country as well. Is there a reason for that?

To follow up on that, the witnesses might be familiar with the single euro payments area, SEPA, and the area of business to business, B2B. Irish banks are not keen on implementing that. Next February there is a commitment to do it for the ordinary domestic customer but not business to business. Is that something that should concern us? Is there a reason for it? I am concerned about it and certain businesses have raised it with me and told me it will leave them at a disadvantage. What are the witnesses' thoughts on that? If they cannot deal with it today, perhaps they would refer back to the committee at another time. It is something the committee might have to take on as well.