Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Small and medium-sized enterprises will continue to be critical to our economic recovery and the Government will continue to support them, whether through start up or scaling phases. SMEs will continue to provide vital jobs and goods and services in our communities and regions, and consequently it is in all of our interests that SMEs are born, survive and thrive. I take the point made on the failure of SMEs and the point made by Deputy Kelleher on venture capital and taking equity stakes. The metrics will show clearly the Government has a very strong record, as does the venture capital community, in taking punts on many SMEs, particularly at present.

People talk about a paradigm shift but a new dialogue has opened up about the notion of fear of failure. We all subscribe to the idea one can fail quickly and move on and start something new. This applies mainly in the tech sector. In other sectors of the economy one must be a little more reticent and careful about the rhetoric we use, because sometimes the failure of an entity involves many creditors and we must have mechanisms in place so people can find relief with regard to debts incurred by a company. We do not want to have a system which is too loose so people could turn over entities too easily whereby many people are left hanging for want of the expedition of the debt which would arise from such activities. I take the point, which is valid, but we need to be careful about how we evolve such a culture in this country.

We have to state for the record that as strong as the foreign direct investment base is in this country, more jobs are supported by Enterprise Ireland and local enterprise offices than in IDA companies. By the end of 2014 Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices supported 180,072 jobs and 31,326 jobs in client companies respectively, while total employment in IDA client companies stood at approximately 174,500. The Minister of State, Deputy English, indicated yesterday that our aim is to create 100,000 new jobs by 2016 and we think this is a realistic proposition. We are well on our way, with an extra 90,000 jobs having been created in net terms since the Action Plan for Jobs was launched in 2012. We are well on our way to reaching the 100,000 extra jobs during this year, a full 18 months ahead of schedule.

We facilitate formal mechanisms for structured ongoing engagement with SMEs through the advisory group on small business, the high level group on better regulation and the retail forum. These formal mechanisms can and do feed into the Action Plan for Jobs and the budget processes, ensuring facilitated structured and regular dialogue between the Government and representatives of the very sector about which we are speaking, which is the small business sector, on any issue of concern and on how to promote the economic development and job potential of the sector.

It must be said that raising awareness among SMEs and entrepreneurs of the range of State-funded supports available remains an ongoing challenge for the public policy system. One of the issues which causes small businesses the most headaches is the lack of clarity about what they are supposed to do, to whom they need to speak and from where to get the right information. This is why the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation launched actionplanforjobs.ieand has partnered with a number of industry ambassadors to create awareness of the supports available. This is part of a wider effort. Another example is the Government's Taking Care of Business events, which also demonstrate our commitment to ensuring SMEs have easy access to the information they require to run a business as efficiently and effectively as possible. We also have the 31 local enterprise offices, LEOs, which form a first stop shop approach for business in each community and this will continue to develop relationships. If we look at the metrics from last week we clearly see jobs growth from the activities of the LEOs.

It is four years since we took office and our economy grew by 4.8% last year. It is the fastest-growing economy in the European Union. When we started the Action Plan for Jobs the unemployment rate was at 15.1%. It has fallen to 10% and it will fall below 10% very shortly.

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