Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In October 2020, the Tánaiste, in response to Deputy Quinlivan, said that the idea of a new agency is certainly something that he had an open mind on and that many business people he spoke to felt that there was a gap. When business is very small it can get help from local enterprise offices and when it is a bit larger or is an exporter, it can get help from Enterprise Ireland but there is a gap in between. It is that gap that Sinn Féin policy is addressing directly.

When we speak to domestically trading small to medium enterprises, they continuously highlight to us the lack of an agency to act for them at national level. It is very tough to navigate the world of business. It is especially so for a small or medium-sized family-run business or a microenterprise. With this in mind, Sinn Féin has long sought the establishment of an Irish enterprise agency focusing on scaling existing Irish businesses and providing a strong agency for non-export focused start-ups and established companies. It is that gap which we have identified and, to be fair, I think the Minister of State has agreed with us that that gap exists. We have a policy as to how that would be filled but I would be interested to know what the Department will be doing in that regard.

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