Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When I was a Member of the last Seanad, the then Senator, Joe O'Toole, used to stand up regularly and ask the various Ministers who came to the House the position with regard to the consolidation of company law. He made the point that this consolidation had been long heralded and promised, but deadline after deadline had been missed. The response the Senator always received was that due to the vast complexity of the work and the huge number of Bills involved, it was taking much longer than anticipated, but the legislation would arrive soon. That day has now arrived. The reason the then Senator was so persistent in raising this matter was that even though it is an area of gigantic complexity, with many different Bills involved, it is something that will have a decisive impact on how companies, entrepreneurs and individuals operate within Ireland. Having had an opportunity to look at other pieces of company legislation and having looked at this Bill, I am aware there was huge work involved in getting it to this point. We should therefore welcome the fact we are at a point at which it has been brought to the Oireachtas for debate and adoption.

I wish to make three specific points with regard to how this Bill will be implemented and the impact I hope it will have on companies. I believe the reason this legislation is so important is that individuals who seek to start businesses and invest here need two things from the regulatory environment in which they must operate. First, in so far as is possible, they need simplicity and clarity. They need to be able to understand the rules involved and what they must do to meet the requirements. Second, they need certainty that the environment in which they will operate will exist tomorrow, next year and the year after. One of the reasons the Bill is so welcome is that it will provide greater clarity to many investors and companies in Ireland with regard to where they stand currently and the rules that need to be obeyed. It will also make clear that after the implementation of this Bill, the rules will be in existence for quite a while to come. Businesses will understand that any changes related to the areas covered within the Bill are likely to be changes of degree rather than fundamental changes.

There are other areas that are important to companies seeking to set up businesses here. As this Bill is being discussed in the Dáil today, we should acknowledge that one of the largest foreign investors in our country, PayPal, has opened a new office in Louth, employing more Irish people. One thing that company has acknowledged in statements relating to opening up that office and its other investments in this country is that this is a good place in which to do business because of the quality of our workforce and the environment in which businesses operate. However, I believe the president of PayPal recently said that despite the amount of investment it is seeking to make here and the number of people it wishes to employ, one in five of those it wishes to employ are likely to have to come from abroad. The reason for this is language proficiency and the ability of those who will work in the company to do business with various cultural groups through the languages required. This must give us food for thought. Despite all the progress we are making in so many areas, despite progress made through Bills such as this, despite the enhanced competitiveness of our tax system and despite the good things we say about our educational system - much of which is true - we still find that for a large investor who is seeking to create new jobs in a country with catastrophic levels of unemployment, the skill levels are not sufficient for that investor to employ Irish people alone. This is a sign that the kind of work the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, has signalled regarding the overhaul of the junior certificate syllabus is necessary. It is a sign we need to continue to question and challenge our system to ensure the rhetoric around our education system - much of which is justified - is met by the reality of what we deliver to our students. We must challenge ourselves to ensure we meet the needs of employers and others who want to hire our students when they leave our schools and colleges.

We must also focus on the area of procurement, particularly procurement by public bodies. Two areas are relevant in this regard. Many of the companies that depend on public procurement for their existence are small and medium-sized companies that provide the backbone of employment in this country. The first issue of particular importance for these companies concerns how long it will take to receive payment. The second concerns the changes taking place currently regarding centralisation of procurement, which are being led by the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes. I agree completely with centralisation of procurement and believe it is a much overdue reform. However, we need to ensure, as we implement this, that we do not move from an environment or market in which we have 1,000 suppliers and one buyer to a model in which we have one supplier for one buyer. Moving the pendulum to that position would result in a structure that is as risky as that from which we are starting. Deputy Hayes has acknowledged this and has said that what we need to do is to ensure the procurement model to which we move is one that is diverse. Instead of a system under which a small number of companies win all the business, we must select a model under which a larger number of companies, though not as large as currently, win business. The model must ensure these companies are competitive, but it must also ensure that the public body continues to have some degree of choice regarding the company from which it buys.

A concern I have had regarding how this has happened in the past is that we could move from having too many suppliers to having too few. As I have said, that would be risky because it would be inefficient.

I would like to make a point about the implementation of this law. Deputy Donnelly rightly said he hopes we end up with fewer solicitors and barristers being involved in having to interpret the complexity of this area and in the implementation of it. I think the whole area of implementation is crucial. During previous company law debates in this House, I have expressed concern about the scale and size of the bodies that are involved in the implementation of our company law. I refer to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, for example. I accept that we are making progress though measures like this to ensure our law is clearer and simpler, but we need to make sure an adequate number of the right kind of people are involved in the implementation of this law in the future.

A famous book, The Smartest Guys in the Room, was written about the collapse of a large company in America some years ago. Its title referred to the idea that the company in question always hired the smartest people. Similarly, it is appropriate for us to challenge ourselves to ensure the smartest people in the room when our company law and our financial regulations are being implemented are people who are paid for by the State. We should also have the right numbers of those people. On the basis of figures I have seen regarding the past implementation of financial regulations and company law, I am concerned that the right number and the right kind of people have not always been involved in doing that on our behalf. As we make progress in tidying and clarifying the law, as we are doing in this Bill, I urge the Minister, Deputy Bruton, to provide that we continue to challenge ourselves to ensure the right resources are in place when that law is being implemented. As we know, the passing of good law is just half the battle. I would argue that the most important thing is to ensure that good law is well implemented.

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