John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister and Ministers of State on the work they have done. A Government Deputy would almost be expected to say that but I genuinely mean it.

We are in a different place now than was the case four years ago in the context of what is available for SMEs. When one is driving to work, one regularly hears radio advertisements relating to the Credit Review Office, access to finance, etc. However, is a person who owns a shop in Phibsborough, which I might pass on my way home, aware of what is available to him or her? I accept that it is not possible to knock on the door of every SME throughout the country and spend an hour explaining to its owners the massive suite of options that exists and the fact that they may be able to avail of some of those options. The Minister referred to the actionplanforjobs.iewebsite and there is also the online tool for SMEs. These are great but what sort of checks are in place to ensure that the maximum number of people possible are using those tools? In the computer age in which we live, websites are windows and those windows require to be changed almost daily. I mean this in the most respectful way but I remain somewhat unconvinced with regard to this matter. As the Minister and Ministers of State will be aware because they meet them regularly, there are those in the SME sector who perform three jobs, for which they receive a single salary, and who work around the clock. Sometimes these people, when checking their post each day, might miss some material relating to that which we are discussing. That material could take the form of a very important document which might, for example, highlight some of the really good things being done by the Government to improve the SME platform in Ireland.

What checks are in place to monitor whether the tools which have been developed, particularly those available online, are being used by sufficient numbers of people to ensure that actionplanforjobs.ieis both reaching its target audience and paying for itself? Essentially, there is a job to be done in terms of monitoring the advertising of the various schemes to ensure that those schemes are working for us. I am a member of the Ballymun Civic Alliance, which replaced Ballymun Regeneration. The local enterprise office is represented on the alliance and one of the other members is an individual who runs a very successful business on Dublin's northside. People, SMEs and other organisations involved with the Ballymun Civic Alliance and bodies like it are all clued in to what is happening. I am concerned about those people who are not aware of what is going on because they are not involved in this way. I am sometimes of the view that I might know more than the owners of SMEs about the various services that are available to them.

This is not a criticism but a concern. We should always strive to ensure we are confident that everything we do trickles down to the person who owns the coffee shop on the corner. A scheme about which he or she does not know could make the difference with regard to employing somebody else. It is not a criticism but a question on what systems we use to ensure we have maximum penetration of all of the genuinely good initiatives which have been established since 2011.