Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I welcome the Labour Party motion. I commend Deputy Penrose in particular on his excellent and timely proposal, which Fine Gael can support without the need to propose any amendment. Small and medium enterprises employ 800,000 people, more than the public sector and multinational corporations combined. In terms of employment, therefore, SMEs are big business. Given the plans by the Government and my party to reduce the numbers employed in the public sector and in view of the decline in manufacturing, we will increasingly look to SMEs for job creation. It is also important to note the role of family businesses, which include GPs' practices, shops and undertakers. They are an important part of the social fabric of our society, in both urban and rural areas.

Small businesses are suffering as they face the combined pressures of high costs, difficulty in accessing credit and the problems caused by our creaking infrastructure. The Minister of State referred to labour costs and to the pay pause for public servants. I assume this was intended as a dig at my party. I do not intend to engage in that debate tonight. Workers, in both the public and private sectors, will not receive a pay increase for 11 months under the terms of the partnership agreement. According to the Minister of State, this constitutes a pay pause.

There is an alternative view that private and public sector workers covered by the partnership deal will receive a pay increase. This includes, for example, a general practitioner registrar, such as I was, who would have received a 2.5% pay increase in September, an annual increment in July, a 3.5% increase next November and another 2.5% increase next May, followed by another annual increment the following July. Similar increases will apply to some of the Deputies opposite who have not received a pay pause. For example, Deputy Cyprian Brady who has now left the House will receive two partnership pay rises and two pay increments, the LS1 and the LS2, in the next 18 months.

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