Mr. Mark Fielding:

On Deputy Calleary's comment, the reason the Department has not invited small business representatives onto the implementation body is that I do not think either Department knows which one is running this. Which Department should have invited us? Should it have been the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation? This fell between two stools because the two Departments are fighting this one.

There has been mention of shotgun weddings, shoe horning and culture. There is no doubt that the culture of the local authorities in this respect will be the prominent and the dominant one and, if that is the case, we are making a very big mistake in terms of the seedbed of entrepreneurship. People talk about the Kerry Group and how that business was started in a caravan. While not every business starts in a caravan, it is started by one or two people. We are taking that seedbed and giving it to people who know as much about entrepreneurship as my elbow knows about snipe shooting. We are making a major mistake.

The implementation body is to come back with an initial report in December. This has been dragging on for a long time. The former Minister in the previous Government, Batt O'Keeffe, started this ball rolling and it has been ongoing since then. People working in local county enterprise boards do not know what will happen in this respect. It is madness. We are expecting them to go out and burst their chops, so to speak, helping small businesses to set up. It is crazy.

On Deputy Lyons's question on the level of awareness of the PRSI exemption scheme, we as an organisation would have notice of the PRSI exemption scheme, the Revenue Job Assist initiative and some 13 other initiatives brought in by this Government, all of which are included in our newsletter on a regular basis, at least every two months in the past year.

The difficulty is that one has the Department of Social Protection promoting the PRSI exemption scheme, while Revenue is promoting revenue assist. The two of them could not meet, although I see a road show is starting now. They fell between two stools. Less than a month ago, I met the Minister for Social Protection and her colleagues. I offered anything that ISME could do to help them when they were bringing their roadshow on board. I said I would put it to our members that we would support them. I saw a note last Friday which said that the roadshow was starting and that it was supported by IBEC and the chambers of commerce.