Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I want to ask the Minister about the substance of the discussion because I am conscious of the time. I want to talk to him about businesses that export. He will be aware, as I am, that they generally perform better across the KPIs, including employment and productivity. It is a bit of a no-brainer that expanding exporting will improve our broad economic performance. In recent years the level of SME exporting has remained static at 3%, potentially dropping back to 2.8%. I am sure the Minister will agree that this is a low figure. It was lower than I would have thought. What is being done by the Department to increase SME exporting among existing exporters and prospective exporters? For those considering exporting, is the Department devising supports or a particular strategy to improve the figure, which we can both agree is a low one? Given that the figure is low, there is an opportunity there.