Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was remiss of me not to congratulate the Minister on her recent appointment and wish her well in it. It is a very important job and we have debated with her predecessor on many occasions, especially on the regional imbalance and the challenges that poses. I thank everyone who contributed to this debate. We placed this motion before the House to reaffirm my party's position of supporting business, jobs, enterprise, SMEs and foreign direct investment. It was our forefathers who pioneered the industrial policy, the undoubted benefits of which this country has reaped over the years right up to the present day. When a huge recession and depression hit this country in 2008, 2009 and 2010, we were able to rely on that FDI sector in particular, and the SME sector that has grown off the back of it, to help this country fight its way through that very difficult period. We make no apologies to anyone for saying we as a party are not ashamed to support a pro-jobs, pro-business, pro-enterprise, pro-FDI, pro-SME and pro-indigenous business policy. That has always been our brand and we are happy to reaffirm that.

I want to refer in particular to some of the comments of the left and the hard left and the arch-hypocritical approach of some of these speakers and parties to the notion of foreign direct investment and the jobs it supports. Foreign direct investment, if we are to believe some of what they say, is a danger to society and to our economy. Nothing is further from the truth. The comments of some of the Sinn Féin speakers and the Solidarity or AAA party, whatever they are calling themselves this week, and the sentiment they expressed can be summed up by saying they are anti-jobs, anti-enterprise and anti-business. They cannot be giving out a mixed signal.

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