Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill and welcome its broad thrust. It is an administrative and housekeeping Bill rather than radical legislation aimed at improving our competitive position as a location for business investment. It is welcome that for the first time in the State's history the most common form of company, the private limited company, has been placed at the centre of company legislation and given primacy. There are numerous simplifications and benefits within the Bill which will aid the limited company in starting off and continuing in business. Basic measures such as single directorships and single document constitutions are simple changes but ones which will have a practical and positive impact on business start-ups.

I have dealt with numerous constituents in the past couple of years who have good business plans but are faced with masses of prohibitive red tape from the outset. The Bill goes a way towards reducing some of that red tape, which is welcome. There is an oft-quoted line from Cabinet members that Ireland should be the best small country in the world in which to do business.

I support this aim. However, I wish to add that Ireland also needs to be the best small country in the world in which to be a worker. At the moment this is not the case. The implosion of the Irish economy for reasons we all know, has seen our live register figure climb to more than 440,000 people who are unemployed, underemployed or poorly employed. The live register figure is beginning to tick down and is now at 426,000. However, this needs to become a real trend and that trend needs to continue at a more rapid pace.

This Bill is geared towards streamlining company law in order to make it easier for companies to be established and to do business. I welcome any moves which will encourage companies to set up in Ireland - be they indigenous or foreign multinationals - and which will create and sustain employment. I firmly believe there is only one way out of the economic situation and that is through job creation and retention. Job creation will reduce the burden on the Department of Social Protection, allowing the Minister, Deputy Burton, to further target supports at those who most need it. Job creation will help alleviate the mortgage arrears crisis, allowing families to service their mortgages and to put their household budgets back on track. Job creation will bring in employers' PRSI, employees' PRSI and income tax, all of which will improve the State's coffers. The Government has introduced and supported a range of job creation measures which are helping small, medium and large companies to create employment.

Budget 2013 contained measures to enable the delivery of supports for companies in need of credit. Scarce public resources were used to leverage funding from the private sector to provide credit for businesses. Measures include the seed and venture capital scheme, the development capital scheme, research and development tax credits and an increase in the lending targets of the two pillar banks for 2013. More recently, the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton has announced details of the new JobsPlus scheme which is focused on the long-term unemployed and provides a cash-flow benefit to businesses which hire jobseekers who have been on the live register for 12 months or more. In addition, the back to work allowance scheme, JobBridge, the launch of Intreo and the rolling out of the pathways to work strategy, are the practical measures being introduced by the Minister and the Government to help people rebound into the jobs market.

In difficult times and with limited resources, the Government has put in place a range of practical measures to aid businesses. The collective purpose of all these State support measures is to create jobs. They are not designed to make it easier for businesses to run shaky concerns, to deprioritise their commitments to State charges such as commercial rates or indeed practise poor or immoral corporate governance. The example this week of the remuneration levels for the chief executive officer of Ireland was a slap in the face to the Irish people and should not act as an example of how State-supported companies, be they banks or SMEs, should operate. I welcome this Bill. I hope it leads to an increase in good companies setting up and more jobs being created. It is one more step in the essential support for small business if we are to deal with the current crisis.

See this speech in context