Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Perry for tabling this important motion and I endorse his proposal for a loan guarantee scheme for SMEs. I have done considerable work in recent months in meeting and consulting with small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency. What I have gleaned from my many meetings is essentially the same as my colleagues have encountered across the country. It is that urban and rural areas are all facing the same challenges. The lack of access to credit is well defined and has been well aired. We have now reached a point where we need action by the Government on this matter and less discussion.

The other issue that needs to be addressed, which is politically sensitive and which the Government has failed to touch on up to this point, is the enormous challenge we face due to the cost of labour in our economy and the utter lack of competitiveness in that respect compared to the position that pertains in most of our European neighbours and in other parts of the globe. If we are to recover our economy and return to growth, we must make our economy competitive. The minimum wage rate in Ireland at €8.65 an hour is the second highest in the European Union and considerably higher than that in our biggest and nearest trading partner, the UK. This wage rate is not sustainable. It must be reviewed in the current context to give a break to employers who literally have been dipping into personal and family savings to keep people on the payroll. Business owners and employers have gone way above and beyond the call of patriotism and duty to try to keep people in employment in this country, but that is not going to last. My fear is that after the Christmas season and come the New Year, even more haemorrhaging of jobs will occur in the private sector because employers are not being assisted or given a break in any way by the Government. I call on the Government to review the issue of the minimum wage. It is essential it is reviewed now in the context of the budgetary crisis, the relentless cost and competitive challenges that face employers and the further job losses we will face in the New Year if the Government does not act.

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