Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

For the first quarter of its operations, the Credit Review Office had 2,650 visits to its website and nearly 200 calls to its helpline, which is much more than the review of 20 cases mentioned in the office's first quarterly report. The House should support the work of the office and encourage SMEs to refer cases to the Credit Review Office.

I draw the attention of Members to the remarks by the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, today at the IBF conference in which he asked other banks, the non-supported institutions, to come within the remit of the Credit Review Office as well as to provide an effective internal review process for SME customers. Everybody appreciates the extremely difficult trading environment in which SMEs find themselves at present. The Minister in my Department, working with the Minister for Finance, requested that new guidelines issue for public contract procurement to make it easier for small and medium enterprises to compete for Government contracts. Under these new guidelines, all advertised contracts up to €250,000 for work and €125,000 for supplies and general services must now be open to all potential tenderers without a pre-qualification process. The threshold for advertising supplies and general services on eTenders has also been halved, from €50,000 to €25,000, reducing red tape and making it easier and less costly to tender for public contracts.

I will summarise some of the other actions the Government has taken. It has provided continued capital funding of €15 million in 2010 to the county and city enterprise boards and last week provided an additional capital funding of €3.3 million, creating more than 450 jobs. It has provided financial support totalling €135 million for almost 2,000 companies through the employment subsidy scheme and the enterprise stabilisation fund. There is a range of other incentives in place through Enterprise Ireland and the enterprise boards for SMEs.

These measures are a concrete example of action by the Government in support of the SME sector and show how it values the contribution, commitment and energy of our entrepreneurs. This Government has and continues to put enterprise and jobs growth at the centre of its economic strategy. I acknowledge the remarks made by Deputy Ring and Deputy O'Mahony regarding Hollister and emphasise that it is to the credit of the workforce involved. It is because of the Government's record in this area that I commend the amendment to the House.

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