John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)

This Bill deals with the second commitment in the programme for Government regarding credit for businesses. The question I have relates to section 10. It sets out the maximum amount that can be lent to microenterprises. It deals with the length of the loan, the potential uses of the loan but the part that I am interested in is the part that refers the class or classes of microenterprise that can apply. The explanatory memorandum it states that these loans will be for "commercially viable proposals that do not meet the convention risk criteria applied by commercial banks". There is no wording in the Bill that explains this further. Therefore, any potential restrictive provisions must be written into the scheme to be drawn up under section 10. It is not clear which businesses this would affect.

I wonder who will be targeted by this Bill. The departmental explanation is that the county and city enterprise boards and the new local enterprise offices will actively engage with applicants in the development of business propositions under this scheme. One might then assume that the category of businesses or potential businesses affected might be quite small unless the scheme under section 10 is broader than the normal or existing remit of the county and city enterprise boards and their national agreements. There needs to be clarification as to who will be affected. The question then arises as to the effect on businesses such as local hardware stores, pubs, restaurants, flower shops, the retailers and whether they will be able to avail of the relief afforded by this legislation.

I have a concern. The IDA and Enterprise Ireland deal with the multinationals and the large exporters and the enterprise boards and Leader organisations deal with innovation, new business ideas and this is how it should be. However, there is a category of businesses which are not benefiting from some of the schemes which we devise and design. These businesses are the small and medium enterprises which have been in business for ten to perhaps 40 years. This category accounts for about 230,000 businesses. They provide €10 billion per year to the Exchequer and they employ 900,000 people. I refer to schemes such as the seed capital scheme and the three-year corporation tax exemption for new start-up companies, competitive start funds for innovative companies doing business in global markets, innovation vouchers, employment and investment incentives. This is all good and productive and I am regularly contacted about these schemes. However, I am also contacted in Waterford more often by long-established businesses who are looking at disaster in the face.

The Minister has been very innovative with regard to these schemes. My concern is that this House and the Departments should spend more time assisting the existing small and medium enterprises or as much time as is spent on the potential small and medium enterprises. A large number of jobs have been lost and we need to give more thought to preserving the 900,000 jobs in the small and medium enterprise sector. The emphasis needs to shift slightly back to keeping some of these businesses afloat. We all know that many of them are hurting. I ask for clarification whether this Bill will be engineered to help them.

It is one thing having a business idea and being unable to access financial assistance but I am aware of people who have businesses and ideas yet the problem is they have seven or eight employees as it is and they are €2 million in debt. This is the situation I come across again and again in Waterford. To put it simply, the existing back bone of small businesses is collapsing in some cases, in particular, in the retail sector. They are not exporters nor are they carrying out research and development; they are traditional retailers such as the dry cleaners, the people who sell motor cars and their issues are commercial rents and rates, energy costs, indirect taxation, legislation and regulation which costs them money. We need to know which businesses the scheme described in section 10 will affect. We need to spend a little more time thinking about the indigenous small and medium enterprise sector and its survival and as much time as is spent on innovation and start-up companies. We have to keep those 900,000 jobs because jobs are haemorrhaging from that sector.

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