Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We are working to finalise the elements that will inform part of the package for the action plan for jobs 2016. While we are not in a position to discuss those here today, there will be a very clear suite of proposals, many of them emanating from changes introduced in the budget this year to help the enterprise sector, but also to build on the publication of the national entrepreneurship strategy last year. It is our ambition to increase the number of startups by 25%, which would represent 3,000 more startups per annum, and to increase the survival rate in the first five years by 25%, as well as to improve the capacity of startups to grow in scale by 25%. We constantly look for ways in which we can continue to improve the models across the country to bring coherence to the supports that startups enjoy. There has been reference to that area in the regional action plan for jobs, which is the right way to go about building up our enterprise ecosystem on the ground across the country - by responding to regional needs and working with the private and public sectors. We are ambitious for startups, and that is enshrined in our Enterprise 2025 strategy, the Government's National Policy Statement on Entrepreneurship in Ireland, and the Action Plan for Jobs provisions, which will be published in January for 2016 and will be very ambitious.

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