Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is, fundamentally, a good budget, one that delivers for families, households and workers across the country, and one that puts money back into people's pockets and helps them deal with the rising cost of living. Importantly, this budget also delivers for business. Without a growing economy, we would not have the resources to fund so many initiatives to improve our society, from childcare and housing, to addressing the climate emergency.

I would first like to touch on the increased cost of business scheme. As the Minister, Deputy Coveney has outlined, this scheme will see businesses, many of them small businesses and microbusinesses, receive a cash injection in the first quarter of next year. Through my work chairing the retail forum and in my travels around the country with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, I meet a lot of businesses, especially smaller retailers, that simply need some help. This grant is a testament to the fact that we are genuinely listening to businesses and responding where we can. Small businesses are at the heart of our local communities and our main streets. They need support, and some need help in getting established. This is where the local enterprise office, LEO, comes in, and why it is so important that they will receive an additional €9 million in this budget, as outlined by the Minister, Deputy Coveney. I have been fortunate enough to visit many and indeed most of the LEOs across the country so far, and I know how important their supports are for small businesses.

Thanks to our State agencies like the LEOs, we have full employment in Ireland at the moment. More women are returning to the workforce, unemployment is at near record low levels, and we want to make Ireland a great and safer place to work. That is why we are giving workers increased rights, increasing their wages, providing paid sick leave, the right to request remote working, the protection of tips in hospitality and bringing in pension auto-enrolment. With increased workers' rights comes the need to protect these rights. An additional €1.7 million for the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to hire ten new inspectors and new adjudicators will ensure that the WRC is well equipped to meet the demands of these new rights and ensure they are enforced.

As well as having more rights, workers have the right to a safe workplace. The Health and Safety Authority, HSA has this week received an increase in funding of €3.1 million. This is a very significant investment in the HSA and will not only allow for more inspectors to be hired but for more information campaigns, and ensuring that if you work in a farm, office, laboratory or on a factory floor, you have a safe place to work.

I will briefly touch on an area of growing importance to Ireland and the Department, which is our membership of the European Space Agency, ESA. The budget saw an additional €3.3 million allocated to the ESA, which already supports 97 Irish companies doing amazing work in the space technology area. This is work that is using satellites and space technology to improve the accessibility of our towns, make farms more efficient and improve transport flows, and it is not only this. Ireland will soon launch our very first satellite, EIRSAT-1, which is something the country can be very proud of. This is a real area where there is investment happening but it is delivering a very clear economic return. From increasing the research and development tax credit to 30%, to incentivising large-scale investment in Ireland, to helping our small businesses, this budget is firmly pro enterprise.

We hear a lot said about the work of Enterprise Ireland, the Industrial Development Authority, IDA Ireland, and our LEOs in both promoting jobs at home and promoting Ireland as a place of business. That is why last year, Enterprise Ireland supported 218,178 jobs, IDA Ireland supported 301,375 jobs, and our LEOs supported 37,863 jobs. These are jobs that have families and households behind them. Our State agencies supported 557,416 jobs in total last year. When we think of funding enterprise, we need to think as well of the thousands of people who will benefit from these jobs. These are people who have been given the opportunity to start their own business and end up with employees of their own, people with really good jobs right across the country, not just in our cities and certainly not just in Dublin, as 80% of the jobs created last year were created outside the capital.

I would like to briefly touch on the work being covered under the remit of the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Calleary. As has been laid out by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, regarding the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, I am delighted that we have been able to see our Department secure a further increase in funding of €5 million for the commission, increasing its budget by 25% to more than €25 million. The increase in the CCPC's work reflects its ever-growing mandate.

I also want to refer to the Corporate Enforcement Authority, CEA. Since its establishment, the CEA's funding has increased year on year. A further €1.2 million is being provided in budget 2024, which will increase the CEA's allocation to in excess of €10.7 million next year. This increase in funding will allow the authority to hire additional staff, including much-needed specialists to augment its digital capabilities in line with recent advances in technology, to ensure it keeps pace with developments in areas such as artificial intelligence.

As we all know, access to finance is crucial for businesses. The reality for many businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized businesses, is that accessing credit facilities for working capital and strategic investment can often be very difficult. Our Department has been at the forefront of rolling out different measures to assist companies in this area. This work has expanded in recent years to respond to particular challenges such as Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's brutal war on Ukraine. We are committed to ensuring viable businesses can continue to have ready access to credit. Budget 2024 commits a further €5 million in funding to support the credit guarantee scheme. The €1.2 billion Ukraine credit guarantee scheme provides low-cost loans from €10,000 to €1 million for businesses. The additional funding being provided in the budget will ensure any claims against the guarantee can be met in 2024. The supports announced this week build upon those we have announced previously.

I would like to touch on the support scheme for businesses that use kerosene, which remains open until the end of the month. Businesses that saw their kerosene costs rise may be eligible for a minimum payment of €500. This scheme is easy to apply for and was called for by many sectors and many representatives in this Dáil. It has been delivered by the Minister, Deputy Coveney and is being implemented in a way that is easily accessible and will provide much-needed relief. I encourage all those eligible to apply by the end of this month.

To sum up, as I said, this is a good budget. It is going to do an awful lot for society and our economy. This Government, unlike alternatives, is genuinely proud to back business. It realises that by backing business and businesspeople, and by creating an Ireland that is a beacon for enterprise, we can generate the sort of tax returns - be they corporate tax or income tax takes - that allow us to spend record amounts in this year's budget. It allows us to give that element of relief to people, be it in the form of €150 or €350 energy credits, or a double child benefit payment just before Christmas, and really targeting those who are less well off. There are so many different measures contained in this budget that are simply going to make life that little bit easier. We are not deaf to the very real concerns of so many people that it is tough out there.

We are in an envious position in this country, and we do not say it enough. I am very lucky that in my role, I get to travel the Continent and speak to ministers from member states all across the EU. As they are dealing with oncoming recessions, they look at the economic model we have in Ireland, and how we can genuinely acknowledge that there are massive challenges on housing, healthcare and meeting the demands of an ever-growing population. We actually have the resources to meet those challenges. We have those resources because, consistently, we have had Ministers for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, from the man to my right - the Minister, Deputy Coveney - going all the way back to the former Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, who have put business at the heart of Government policy. They understand that by creating that atmosphere to genuinely allow businesses to grow, we can ensure our society improves. We have an economic model that serves society first, and I hope it will continue to do so.

The measures carried out today are broad, and speaking to a number of representative groups and individual businesses in the past 48 hours since the overall budget was announced, the ongoing refrain is that this is a good budget. This is a pro-business budget, and in fact, it is possibly the most pro-business budget in decades, and that in turn is a pro-societal budget. It is one the Irish people can be proud of, and I absolutely commend this budget to the House.

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