Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I am also very happy with the enterprise boards which do an excellent job. I served on one for years. However, it is time we expanded their role in order that they can help more people and companies, both start-up and existing ones.

Having served on a board and spoken to people on other boards, I know they are quite limited in terms of who they can help. I agree there is some discretion but we should give them more scope to try to help more companies. Some companies have let go two or three staff members over the past couple months. That has happened quietly and has not hit the headlines. We have a duty to get the enterprise boards to help them, whether in trying to sustain some of those jobs, in trying to expand their services or in giving them more capital to create more jobs.

We probably all agree that small and medium sized enterprises will keep this country going over the next couple of years. We could use the enterprise boards to channel more grants into existing and new businesses. I would like to hear the Minister of State's thoughts on giving them more scope to help more companies, not only manufacturing ones, and to provide not only employment grants. I know there are partnership bodies but the enterprise boards are best positioned to help maintain and create new jobs because they know how the councils and Government works.

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