Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I expected the Government to put enterprise and jobs at the centre of the budget announcements made yesterday and today. Sadly, I was disappointed. We must ensure that enterprise is at the heart of every Government decision. While we must continue to attract foreign direct investment, small and medium-sized Irish businesses will lead recovery in the Irish economy. We need to give them every possible assistance. We need an appeals mechanism based on economic circumstances to limit the burden of local authority rates. We need a significant enhancement of supports for small businesses. Fianna Fáil proposed in its pre-budget document a doubling of the modest budget available to city and county enterprise boards.

I believe that the Government should convene an economic advisory council to complement the work of the fiscal council. The economic advisory council should comprise a broad range of representatives from the private sector to advise Government on enterprise and wider economic policy. Membership of such a council could be drawn from key sectors of the economy, including SMEs, financial services and the export sector such as the agrifood industry. The steps taken since 2008 have resulted in a marked improvement in our competitiveness. The European Commission forecasts that by 2012 Ireland's competitiveness will have improved by 14%, the largest in the European Union. This progress must be continued.

We need as a country to encourage and reward rather than penalise people in this country who take the risk of becoming self employed. As a means of encouraging entrepreneurship, the State should consider the introduction of a voluntary PRSI scheme for the self-employed so that, similar to other PAYE workers, when they lose their jobs they can claim jobseeker's benefit and other welfare benefits. The current system is a deterrent to anyone thinking of starting a new business. The Minister has finally brought clarity to the issue of upward-only rent reviews, although not the clarity expected or promised to retailers. When upward-only rent reviews were ended for new leases, both the Labour Party and Fine Gael were absolutely adamant that there would be no problem with doing the same for existing leases. For nine months Members have been told the Minister for Justice and Equality is consulting the Attorney General. I had intended to ask how long did it take for the Attorney General to tell the Government whether a measure was constitutional.

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