Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am an employer myself and have been self-employed for nearly all of my life. I was lucky that a small employer took me on in the building trade when I was 15 years of age. That is when I went out on the buildings. I learned my trade and then I became an employer. I am still in employment and providing employment and I understand how hard it is to be an employer. The problem here is that this Government does not consider small businesses. It does not consider anything apart from international businesses where trade unions are involved but the statistics show that SMEs provide 50% of employment in Ireland. That is what the Government has to consider and it has to ask how it can help these people. The people who go out there, set up small businesses and are self employed take all of the risks. What if something happens to them? A friend of mine in Kerry had a bad accident and will be out of work for at least six months but might never get back to work. He was an employer. The Government does not consider the employers who do without wages themselves to make sure others get paid when legislation and regulations are changed. The only way they can recoup money is by increasing their prices but that drives inflation. We said this when the VAT increased from 9% to 13.5% and, at the same time, the minimum wage went up, which I welcomed. If the Government had left the VAT rate at 9%, that would have counteracted the minimum wage increase and people would actually have gotten more wages. Instead, the Government increased the VAT. It then took more income tax from employers and all they could do was increase their prices because money does not come out of the sky. Every product has a price. If an employer has employees, he or she has to cover employment costs as well as the running costs of the business, which drives inflation. The Government does not look at this. It is basing policy on big international businesses and has forgotten about the SMEs in local areas which employ 50% of the workforce in Ireland.

See this speech in context