Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach keeps mentioning entrepreneurship and job creation. Unfortunately, it is clear that he does not actually understand them. I sometimes wonder whether he or his Government has any understanding of how capital flows result in job creation. The only thing of substance the Government has done to try to direct the flow of capital in the economy in the past four years is to create a tax holiday for investors in the property sector. If one invested in commercial or retail property in recent years in Dublin, Cork, Galway or elsewhere, one got a seven-year capital gains tax holiday. However, if one invests in productive sectors of the economy such as the technology sector or across the SME sector in which jobs are being or can and should be created, one pays capital gains tax at a rate of 33%.

If the Government looked across the water to the UK and saw what George Osborne - a clever Chancellor of the Exchequer who understands market economics, job creation and the genuine concept of an entrepreneurial and innovative economy - has done, it would be mimicking what he has done. When I speak to people who want to invest capital in this country, they tell me that they are not bothered to do so because it does not pay. They are taking their capital and investing in job creation in London and elsewhere in the UK. That is a major problem.

The Government's figures are incorrect and I would advise the Taoiseach to look at the CSO figures. Over the past three years, self-employed people in Ireland have started employing fewer people than they did back in 2012 or 2013. The number of self-employed people who are employing others has actually dropped. That is a statistical fact. The Taoiseach's notion that indigenous Irish businesses are creating jobs for others is a fallacy. It is not reality. I would love to hear how the Taoiseach intends to change that. Is he going to change our approach to capitals gains tax and incentives in investment in real job creation here and not just roll out the red carpet for FDI companies, which we know account for less than 15% of jobs across the economy? Will he put in place concrete measures to deliver a genuinely entrepreneurial economy in order that young people who want to come back and create businesses and jobs here can do so and will not be penalised and punished for it? Alternatively, is he going to continue burying his head in the sand, clapping himself on the back and doing nothing about it?

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