Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

We want to help the cashflow of small businesses by having all Government Departments and agencies settle their bills within ten days instead of 30 days. The UK Government has already decided to proceed with such a measure. We also want the Government to establish a monitoring group comprising representatives of the Government, SMEs, and banks to monitor the lending practices of financial institutions, for the simple reason that the banks are telling the organisations representing small businesses one thing and then doing the very opposite in practice. There needs to be an independent mechanism by which their lending practices are reviewed. We want to strengthen the role of county enterprise boards and remove the cap on the number of jobs that can be created by them. These modest proposals should not be dealt with in a partisan manner in this House. Unfortunately, the Government is blind to the problems currently being faced by small businesses throughout the country. Rather than accepting the modest proposals outlined in the amendment and doing something with them, the Government has moved a bland and self-congratulatory amendment that will do nothing to assist small businesses and even less, frankly, for the Government's own credibility.

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