Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have read the paper and it is not an easy paper to read. It is the second working paper that has been produced by the Minister’s Department along with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. I fully accept that without the support, all of these businesses would have been much worse off. I am on record in supporting the Government on quick action.

That is not what I am asking here. I am asking where we are going next. When one looks at the figures, for example in the 2021 report from the same group of people, the facts are staggering. SMEs are the predominant enterprise type in Ireland, which we know. They account for 99% of the active businesses with 92% of these being micro- where they have fewer than ten employees. It goes on to say that despite Ireland’s reputation as a high-tech, knowledge-intensive economy, the majority of employees in Ireland work in traditional domestic-facing sectors, where SMEs are the dominant employer. When I take the two reports together, it is the small enterprises that are in serious trouble, notwithstanding the help. The prediction is that by 2024 a substantial proportion of these will have gone out of business.

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