John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

As the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, is leading a trade mission to the United States to widen the export footprint of Irish exporters by exploring new opportunities in the fast growing south-east states of Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, I am pleased to debate with Deputy Griffin on this matter.

My Department is focused on two key approaches aimed at creating jobs throughout Ireland. First, building on the recent jobs initiative, the Minister is preparing a long-term jobs strategy designed to set out a clear plan for the economy in the next ten to 20 years. The plan should be completed in the coming months. Second, in the shorter term, the focus of the Minister, Deputy Bruton, the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Sherlock, and me is on three key issues, namely, reducing costs for business, improving access to credit and supporting the research and development and innovation agendas to support a strong indigenous engine of growth.

The Department is engaged in an exercise on long-term economic planning to consider from where future jobs will come. We are examining the strengths of Ireland, including our regional strengths, to identify where clustering opportunities can be created or further developed. It is important to play to the strengths and address any weaknesses across regions in the areas of job creation and retention. While a particular focus on a region is needed from time to time, as we have seen in recent months and years, a clear national focus is also needed.

On 10 May the Government launched a range of measures under the jobs initiative to improve the competitiveness of the economy and reduce costs for business. These measures will support the maintenance of existing jobs and the creation of new employment. The initiative also included a number of measures to boost the domestic economy, including a reduction of VAT; the halving of the lower rate of employer's PRSI; expenditure on more employment intensive capital projects; additional funding for energy efficiency schemes which will support jobs in the construction sector; and the development of proposals for a partial credit guarantee scheme to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises and for a micro-finance start-up fund which will be important for new start-up companies.

We are also pursuing other actions to reduce the costs of doing business across a range of areas. For example, reform of the joint labour committee, JLC, system and amalgamation of the industrial relations mechanisms will help to reduce costs for businesses. We have already produced savings for businesses of €187 million from reducing administrative burdens. As chairman of the high level group on business regulation, I am continuing to pursue practical solutions to 20 red tape issues in addition to the 48 issues already identified by business and processed. The advisory group on small business which I also chair and which was established in June will also play a key role in identifying the issues that need to be addressed to support small business and realise the job potential of the sector. These include the issues raised by the Deputy.

Access to finance and credit is critical and has been identified as a major issue for small businesses in recent years. As the Department outlined to a joint Oireachtas committee meeting last week, the Government has taken measures to restructure and recapitalise the banking system to ensure it provides for substantial new lending in the economy. The Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the Credit Review Office are rigorously monitoring the banks' activities to ensure this takes place. Separately, the Department is actively working on the introduction of the temporary partial credit guarantee scheme which was announced by the Government in May. Details of the scheme which is in the design stage will be announced before the end of October.

Another component of addressing the finance needs of industry is the micro-finance start-up fund. Securing access to working capital is critical for start-up businesses. The aim is to formalise proposals for the Government's consideration in the context of budget 2012 which will benefit the 250,000 small businesses employing more than 800,000 people in the domestic economy. A further measure to improve cash-flow for small and medium-sized enterprises is the requirement, from 1 July last, for the Health Service Executive and other public sector bodies to pay their suppliers within two weeks of receipt of a valid invoice.

There has been significant investment in research, development and innovation for the collective gain of the country. The benefit of such investment is that Irish based, research and development performing companies have shown a level of growth in trade and exports during the downturn that demonstrates the value of productive, high calibre research and innovation activity.

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