Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

Job creation is central to our economic recovery and the programme for Government has job creation at its core. The role of my Department is to ensure that we have the right policies in place that will support and grow our enterprise base in order to facilitate both job creation and job retention. On a national basis, the jobs initiative announced on 10 May focuses our limited resources on measures that offer the greatest potential for expansion and employment creation in the domestic economy. There are 200,000 companies employing up to 900,000 people in the domestic economy and our job is to kick-start the initiative there because the sector is the backbone of the domestic economy. Initiatives such as the reduction in the VAT rate and the reduction in the low rate of employers' PRSI were designed to keep people gainfully employed. During the most acute phase of the recent recession, grants were offered to exporting companies to help them adapt to the difficult conditions. Some companies have used part-time working as a way of adapting to temporary falls in demand and receive support from the Department of Social Protection.

Very many of the programmes operated by the Department's agencies are designed to help businesses develop their product range, open up new markets or improve their skills and processes in order to keep people in employment. For example, Enterprise Ireland provides a range of supports to assist companies, especially SMEs, to meet the challenges of exploiting new business opportunities, thus sustaining jobs. These include research and development grants; programmes to improve productivity and processes; management development and mentoring; and supports to enter new export markets. The Minister's recent trip was all about exploring the huge potential in that regard.

The Government's work in restructuring the banks to create two pillar banks capable of lending into the domestic economy is central to our strategy for job protection. The Government has recognised that there still is market failure in providing finance to SMEs and we are working on the early introduction of a temporary partial loan guarantee scheme which will help.

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