Pádraig Ó Céidigh (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their presentations which were first class. While I have been taking notes throughout, I still missed parts of the extremely valuable contributions.

An important purpose of the Upper House is to invite before such as the witnesses to appear before us in order that we all become part of the process, rather than looking down or up at it. This type of engagement, whether it relates to small and medium sized businesses, mental health or other issues of fundamental importance to society, allows people to tell us what is needed. This process is fundamental for democracy.

I was very much taken with what Ms Rebecca Harrison said. Her family has been in business for more than 40 years. The majority of businesses in Ireland are family businesses. My colleague, Senator Devine, referred to research that found that one in seven SMEs do not have a succession plan. Why is that the case? One reason is tax which prevents people from moving on and another is that some people do not want to go through the stress that family members have gone through running a business. There are two issues to keeping a business going. The first, the financial side, is what everyone talks about. However, the elephant in the room is the stress it causes because every day is about trying to survive. A national small business strategy connected with the ministerial process and purely focused on SMEs would be an extremely important move.

What do ISME and the Small Firms Association consider the top three areas for reform that should be included in the committee's report?

Will the researchers from the enterprise research centre explain the academic thinking around the direction of small business policy and how it should be developed? Dr. Bourke might not be able to share that with us now but perhaps she will send us the information in due course.