Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We would all agree that the creation of jobs at every level needs to be assisted and facilitated. I have some concerns about the amalgamation or movement of the country enterprise boards into the local government structure. The micro sector is a key sector and has a positive knock-on effect when jobs are created. Because they are indigenous, most of the purchasing power will be retained in the economy. More than 90% of businesses in the EU, never mind in Ireland, fall into this category. There is no shortage of good ideas. Very often there is a difficulty in getting funding to get started and build those good ideas into small businesses. There was a debate between the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government about where to position this sector.

It is essential that services are available reasonably locally and we accept that. It is not just a change of address because most of the county enterprise boards will have existed physically outside the county or city council offices. It is not just about saving on rent or overheads. The location is important because there is a cultural difference between the county enterprise boards and the local government system. I was on a county and a town council for long time and my experience is that the local government system is very legalistic and internally focused. It is a process-driven set of services and I am concerned that the flexibility we need and that we saw in the county enterprise boards will be lost with the positioning within the local government system.

It will be an entity within that service - it is not just to be moulded in - but the executive levels will have a lot of dialogue with each other and management team meetings will most likely include the chief executive officer or director of services, who will have a responsibility here. We have constantly been told that the new reforms in local government are the most radical in over 100 years. I do not buy that mantra. I do not expect to see very radical changes and that is a missed opportunity. While this may not be a very radical departure, I have concerns that the culture will be one of the biggest problems.

There is a need to have a broader remit. For example, some county enterprise boards would have had money to spend and would not be able to spend it while others would have suffered because they had a queue of projects but lacked the money. Last year there was no money in Kildare from February until October, when some money was returned. There were very viable projects and it was a shame they did not get the go-ahead. The cost of creating jobs in the micro-enterprise sector is tiny compared with that of creating jobs further up the food chain in the multinational sector, where the jobs will tend to be much more high-tech. This sector has been incredibly important, with more than 30,000 jobs created since the county enterprise boards were founded in the early 1990s. The purchasing power has a very important knock-on effect.

The mentoring programme has been incredibly important. Very often people will say the mentoring programme has been at least as important as the grant they may get or the feasibility study that was supported. A range of people fall outside the category. They are the people I see on a reasonably regular basis - people who have been out of the workforce for a while, many of whom are women. People who have been self-employed do not get the kind of supports that would be available when starting a small business, such as the back-to-work allowance that would be paid through the social protection system, which should be a complement to the supports that come from the county enterprise boards.

A cross-departmental range of issues needs to be considered. Somebody who came to see me last week told me he had worked hard on his business plan and got all of the ducks in a row, but he cannot proceed because he does not have the funding to get it off the ground. Others will be able to point to people with the same difficulty. While initiatives like the seed capital fund can be helpful, some people are not able to leverage funds from them. These issues must be examined also.

Every business has concerns about the banking system. It remains incredibly difficult to get finance from the banks and a business must almost be a proven entity before a person will be allocated finance for it. The risks all seem to be on one side and receiving banking finance remains a problem. It is important to retain some connection between public representatives and sectors such as the micro-enterprise sector. Public representatives can bring something to the table. Much has been said about the reform of local government and providing councillors with more power. However, they are excluded from areas where they could offer assistance. This is one such area.

I have doubts that the Bill will add anything to the area of enterprise. I believe the proposal was born out of the quango cull. The greatest danger is one of culture and I do not believe the Bill will change the culture of the local government system in the foreseeable future. Change will be ongoing and the fact that the enterprise boards will now be part of the local government system is a risk for them. They have been reasonably successful and could have been even more successful had more funding been available. I do not suggest they should have lent irresponsibly, but that said, many potentially viable businesses have not got off the ground or have been limited in their effectiveness owing to the shortage of funding at that level. I hope this issue will be examined further. While there have been some improvements, a lot more needs to be done because some real opportunities are being wasted.

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