Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On entrepreneurship outside of export potential, there is quite a bit of support in this area. Start-up tax relief is available for such companies. They can get a refund of the income tax that they paid as PAYE workers in the previous six years as part grant of the investment in their new business. That is a significant incentive for people starting up who come from the PAYE sector. This process has been made easier through the availability of a ready reckoner. We continue to provide mentoring which is a key element to achieving success. In our engagement with the young entrepreneurs, they repeatedly emphasised that getting the right mentor was crucial to their business success.

As rightly and fairly acknowledged by Deputy Calleary, Microfinance Ireland is now running much more smoothly. It is available to all sectors. The Strategic Bank Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, is now introducing new products in that area. The tax break for company start-ups is available regardless of the sector in which the company operates.

There is a quite comprehensive list of supports available and as one goes through it sector by sector, there are additional ones. In food, there are specific programmes and so on to support companies. While the environment is good, they do not qualify for grants from LEOs. That is the one element for which they do not qualify.

On the business environment for start-ups, the Government has made that much easier with the reform of company law. In respect of the process of establishing a company, I refer to the obligations of directors to comply, to not being obliged to have physical annual general meetings and to not being obliged to have two legal documents to start up a company. Consequently, the entire start-up environment has been streamlined and for the first time ever, the Government published an entrepreneurship strategy last year with 96 initiatives for improvement. The Department will work systematically through those and will have a set of actions for 2016 to improve that environment.

On the issue of capital, as the Deputy noted, the Department is running ahead of capital expenditure and I would not be surprised were I to come back seeking a Supplementary Estimate in respect of capital. It probably will be approximately €20 million and will be across a range of programmes that will-----