Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join Deputy Calleary and other members of the committee in offering condolences to the family of Mr. Hugh Cooney. The impact he had when it came to enterprise development and job creation goes without saying. He had a major influence on policy in that respect. I agree with Deputy Calleary and second his good wishes to his family at this time. It is a difficult time for them, but we recognise the work carried out by Hugh over the years.

The initial topic of debate was the supports and measures taken to encourage start-ups and entrepreneurship. That is a key part of what we are trying to do in Government. The first entrepreneurship strategy was produced by this Government. There were many Governments that went before it, made up of all the parties represented here tonight, which did not bother producing an entrepreneurship strategy, plan or policy statement. The idea of that is to focus the needs and concerns of all Government Departments, including the Departments of Education and Science and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, on what needs to be done to drive a new culture of entrepreneurship. That will feed into successful start-ups now and in the future. It is an important step and there is an implementation body behind that, chaired by the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton. There were 96 actions across that policy statement and we are making progress on all of them. They are all part of the wider drive to support entrepreneurship. I know the Deputy also wants to focus on the budget, so I will come back to that, but there is a recognition that we have to do that and change the culture. I recognise that too. The enterprise committee had a role in some of the actions. Mr. John O'Sullivan chaired an initial forum to fit into the strategy that produced that document. Many key actions in that have been implemented, and rightly so. Key parts of that are mentoring, access to finance and a culture change to encourage people to think of being an entrepreneur. That is why we had the start-up gathering in early October, to drive that thinking and to advertise what is available to the start-up community, both locally and internationally. The start-up gathering had a big impact throughout the country, with over 400 events to get the message out that we are supporting start-ups.

The budget must be seen in context. I see it as a step in the right direction. It does not do enough for anybody in any sector, but it is a show of intent, to start pointing in the right direction that we want to do much more for entrepreneurs and for those who are in business. We had the new tax credit and we have committed to closing that gap over the next three years. Maybe if the economy allows it, we will close it more quickly. Why was it there in the first place? This is the first opportunity the Government has had to correct it. It is a signal of intent. It is worth €550 this year and we are committed to changing that in the next two years, so it is a very clear issue.

On capital gains, we know it does not go far enough to compete with our competitors. However, one must also review how it started in the UK. The tax percentage was higher, but there was always a €1 million level as well. That has increased in the UK. Likewise, I would see it as something we want to progress here. It starts at €1 million. We have a finance Bill and we can discuss it then and hopefully we can increase it over the years ahead as well. The 20% rate is a big improvement on the 33% rate. I understand what Deputy Calleary is saying, that it is not enough when compared to the UK or across the Border, but we have to accept that, again, this is a budget that tries to put us on the right footing. There is no magic pen to do everything we want to do in one year and one budget. We are signalling our intent of where we are hoping to go with this.

There are many offerings available to start-ups and existing businesses to encourage them to increase employment. Over 70% of businesses say they are confident they will increase the numbers they employ this year or next year. Supports are in place to encourage them to do that, including JobsPlus. There were different schemes over the years. Recommendations came from the committee to make it simpler and more straightforward and now it is quite straightforward for companies to say: "We will employ somebody off the live register. There is a grant for that and we will avail of it." There are many supports there. There have been 1,000 actions over the past three and a half years on the Action Plan for Jobs process. Over 90% of them are directly useful to SMEs, start-ups and companies.

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