Mr. Sven Spollen-Behrens:

The Small Firms Association, SFA, represents a diverse membership of businesses with fewer than 50 employees. We are homegrown and span every sector of our economy. Our members can be found in every town and city in Ireland. We have a vision of Ireland as the most vibrant small business community in the world, supporting entrepreneurship, valuing small business and rewarding risk takers. We have over 246,000 businesses, employing half of the private sector workforce, which is 720,000 people.

The Irish economy is performing strongly, but it is clear that the rapid current growth is based largely on the success of multinationals and foreign direct investment. In contrast, the small business sector is not performing at its optimal level in many areas, including the rate of start-ups, scaling, survival, productivity and exporting. To counter this, the SFA is calling for a national small business strategy, replicating the successful playbook that has been employed since the 1950s for attracting foreign direct investment.

I will now ask SFA member Ms Rebecca Harrison, owner and managing director of Fishers of Newtownrnountkennedy, to share her thoughts on her situation and the Irish economy.