Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to mention a couple of issues. We have spoken about procurement on a number of occasions. How much work has been done by the Department with regard to the definition of an SME within Europe? The figure of 250 employees was mentioned, but here in Ireland we would consider a company with 50 employees as an SME. In the context of EU procurement rules we must follow, has the Department worked hard to convince the EU of the different set of circumstances in Ireland? In the context of procurement, will Mr. Murphy comment on the fact that it is a Swedish company that is running the Irish procurement website? What impact does this have on Irish companies in the context of being able to access some of the tenders on offer?

With regard to women entrepreneurs, last year a fund was set aside for these.

Is it proposed to commence that again this year? It was very successful last year and was way oversubscribed. Are we looking particularly at youth entrepreneurs? Is the Department actively pursuing policies that would allow young people, particularly those under 25 years of age, to access funding through microfinance and so on? Is the Department putting policies in place for people under 25 who would not have a financial track record, so that such things could be taken into consideration?

What level of funding will be available in respect of Horizon 2020? The Secretary General mentioned 15% to 20% of the overall budget but what level of funding are we actively pursuing for Ireland under this? What base of funding are we going to get? In respect of smart regulation, page 6 refers to setting out the next steps for simplification of EU regulation. What is the timeframe for this? How far have we advanced in reducing red tape for our own small and medium enterprises, be they start-ups or existing companies that are coming under pressure at the moment?

The second paragraph deals with the youth guarantee. How quickly does the Secretary General see us taking up the funding that is being made available? A pilot project has been set up in Ballymun. How quickly can we access the €6 billion that is being front-loaded? We have to obtain matching funding for some of the programmes under the youth guarantee. How soon will we be able to put that in place? Will it be part and parcel of our own budget for 2014? Is there a possibility of leveraging what we might be able to access in additional funding which we used for school buildings and which we got from the European Investment Bank? We could use that allocation to leverage other funding, apart from our own State funding. Is that possible? We could increase the pot significantly as a result.