Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Donnelly for publishing this Bill and getting it on the agenda of the House as quickly as he did. It is a topical issue and now is the right time to discuss it further, following the passage of what is known as the baby Bill in December, when, in fairness to the Minister, he recognised that there was an issue around the whole examinership process, particularly for smaller companies, and introduced legislation to try to deal with it. He changed the system by moving the process from the High Court to the Circuit Court, which will make it easier for some companies to access the examinership process, particularly viable companies.

When I listened earlier to Deputy Donnelly introducing the Bill, he spoke in great detail about what he hopes this legislation can and will achieve if enacted. It has been the Minister's policy to try to open up the examinership process to as many companies as possible. We spoke during the Second Stage debate on the Companies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013 about what the Minister was trying to achieve and how important it was that the examinership process did not become the preserve of larger companies, some of which have used and abused it to try to deal with issues such as upward-only rent reviews and other legacy issues. I note that Deputy Barry said this Bill was being used, in his opinion, as a back-door way of dealing with upward-only rent reviews, but that would not be the case if the Government had implemented its own programme for Government and introduced legislation to deal with upward-only rents. The Government is saying it cannot be done, on the advice of the Attorney General, but we have not seen that advice. If that is the case, let us see the advice. Let it be put before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and let us discuss it, because it is our contention that we can introduce legislation to deal with upward-only rents. In fact, Deputy Tóibín, the Sinn Féin spokesperson on jobs, introduced legislation previously to deal with this issue.

Over the next two nights we will hear a lot about the importance of the SME sector, how 99% of enterprises are in this sector, how it provides 70% of all employment, and how it is the lifeblood of the economy. All of that is correct, so any proposals that come before this Chamber to help that sector should be examined and welcomed and should not be dismissed out of hand. Unfortunately, that is what the Government has decided to do with regard to this particular Bill published by Deputy Donnelly. Deputy Donnelly was very honest in saying that his Bill, as published, is not the finished article. He admitted that there was room for improvement and pointed out that he did not have access to the expertise within the Minister's Department. However, some of the people who have worked on the Bill are experts in their own right. Ross Maguire was one of them and I cannot recall-----

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