Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

The Taoiseach and I have discussed in the past the importance of recognising the efforts that go into sustaining and growing a business. As an important thing, it should be a feature of our political discourse. Core to our growth as a country in the future, as Deputy Dolan said, is the growth of indigenous enterprises, those that move from start-ups to scale-ups, and thinking about how we in government can support and assist the environment in which those businesses operate. Therefore, will the Taoiseach consider a number of discrete policy proposals that would incentivise and help that particular environment and encourage innovation? For example, small and medium enterprises are not represented in their own right on the Labour Economic and Employer Forum. Is this something the Government could look at addressing to augment the representation of SMEs, which are vital to growth in the future? Second, will the Taoiseach look at increasing the probability of innovation in our economy and the process around the research and development tax credit? A lot of feedback from businesses in my constituency states that at times it can be onerous to account for the use of that tax credit. If anything, we should be making it easy for companies to access it in order to encourage innovation and the demand-led growth that will sustain the economy and especially our indigenous businesses.

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