Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ireland’s competitiveness performance has been central to the recovery in employment. Since 2011, Ireland's competitiveness as measured by a range of international indices has improved. Ireland moved from 16th to seventh in 2016 in the IMD’s world competitiveness yearbook, which benchmarks the general environment for business. We moved from 24th to 23rd in the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness report, which benchmarks the factors driving productivity and prosperity in economies. In addition, the World Bank’s Doing Business 2017 report, which looks at regulations impacting on small and medium enterprises, shows Ireland is now ranked 18th out of 190 countries.

As Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, my focus is on improving Ireland’s competitiveness performance. Brexit means we must do more across a wide range of policy areas. We must consolidate Ireland's traditional strengths and address those areas where we lag behind the UK. We are stepping up investment in infrastructure and access to finance is improving. We are reforming our tax system to encourage enterprise and allocating more resources to attract investment and facilitate innovation. I have asked that Enterprise Ireland intensify its work to improve firm level competitiveness through its management capability and development programmes such as LEAN.

I will bring the National Competitiveness Council's competitiveness challenge report to Government shortly. Further actions and reforms, driven by the Action Plan for Jobs, will enable us to improve our competitiveness performance, ultimately helping us to achieve our objective of sustainable full employment.

See this speech in context