Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's best instincts initially gravitated towards the value of this amendment, and then it seems the lawyers and officials pulled him back from it. I do not know what exactly happened, but the Minister's response is a little disappointing. Furthermore, it is a slightly contradictory response to say that although this legislation is about creating employment, we cannot put in that category for legal reasons because it goes beyond the remit of the Bill. I do not understand that. It is quite contradictory. It raises the question of why we do not call it an enterprise Bill or an enterprise bank Bill, if the Government wants to focus it so narrowly. That would be a good objective.

I was chatting to a Fine Gael colleague of the Minister's outside the House who made the point that this legislation is very important in terms of the need to provide finance to the small and medium enterprise sector which is not currently available, and I replied that I totally agreed but that there are other strategic economic and social objectives which are as important for the economy and our society, and I would have thought that was what a strategic bank should be. If it is simply an enterprise bank, we should call it an enterprise bank or a bank similar to the former ICC, which was mentioned, but I thought this was a strategic bank and that it had a slightly broader remit. That is what the name implies, yet the Minister is narrowing its focus. To narrow it down to the extent that the imperative to create jobs cannot be explicitly stated in this section seems odd. To elaborate on the point I and Deputy Donnelly mentioned, the categories of growth, economic development and competitiveness in the economy are quite general and one could argue they go beyond the priority the Minister is putting on SMEs, because they are quite broad - namely, protecting taxpayers and contributing to economic development. Therefore, why would the category of employment not be set out explicitly as an imperative, as there are things that would significantly benefit from job creation which might not necessarily be ticked under the other categories or imperatives?

I am surprised that the Minister will not accept this amendment, particularly when he is saying that it is the intention of the Bill, but we just cannot say so. It is an odd position. Perhaps he could explain that. It would be sensible to accept this amendment and it is what would mark out a strategic bank as opposed to another type of bank whose focus is more narrow.

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