Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

If one considers the figures which were put forward by the Government in regard to its support for small and medium-sized enterprises over the next five years, one finds the figure is at least €1.5 billion, most of which is front-loaded in the next year or two. There is also an expectation that the banks will provide €3 billion in loans to small and medium-sized enterprises. With that sort of money expected to be going into small and medium-sized businesses, one would have to ask if there is any need for this motion.

The reality is that the Government is little bit like Hitler when he was moving tank divisions around the eastern front in late 1944 when a lot of the divisions did not exist. A lot of the Government's commitment to enterprises does not seem to exist. Businesses are still closing at a faster rate this year than in the previous two years and small and medium-sized businesses are still worried that the Government does not understand their concerns. We are still seeing fairly solid businesses - we are not talking about funding businesses which are basket cases and will not survive - which have reasonably good business plans and need a bit of support which they are not getting from the banks and they do not believe the Government is buying into it either.

The Government has not done anything radical to make business easier, reduce the amount of Government interference and help businesses to work more efficiently. There is a need for that. At the height of the boom we had regulations for everything. For example, how much change does the Minister of State envisage is required to NERA? It is seen as the bane of the lives of some businesses. In fact, the more one runs one's business properly, the more NERA can be seen to be a troublesome Government agency than if one paid no heed to regulation at all. This comes from my experience of the concerns that have been raised with me about regulations and legislation promoted by the Government. There is a need for the Government and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation to take notice of people's concerns. In recent years, the Government has paid a great deal of lip service to what it can do for small and medium-sized businesses, but I do not get the sense that it has bought in to their concerns and this has also been conveyed to me by many business people in that sector.

Last week, we discussed CAP reform and over recent years one dramatic change that has taken place in agriculture in this country is the development of small artisan businesses which produce specialised foods or cheeses. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation have not quite bought into how much can be done in this sector. They do not have the same vision as Sir Anthony O'Reilly did in the 1960s, when he was made chairman of Kerrygold and brought to that organisation a vision that made Kerrygold a brand leader in butter throughout the world. Prior to his intervention we mass-produced butter, packaged it with no labels or branding and exported it to the UK. We did not get the maximum value for the product. We need the same drive to be innovative and to help small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Government response is that it is giving so many million euro to Enterprise Ireland and to county enterprise boards. This is like a continuation of what was done in the Celtic tiger, which was to throw a few million here and there. The Minister of State needs to explain to us how the money is being spent and what governance is overseeing it. How will he tell us that the money is being well spent? One thing we see from the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports is that much of the money spent in the past decade was not spent very sensibly. We need a new focus and to make every euro count, whether in research and development, marketing or helping these companies to structure and organise themselves properly.

There is a need for smaller government and the Minister of State should drive this forward. Look at all the regulations and rules. Some of them are necessary and have a role to play in protecting workers and standards but others seem to be long past their sell-by date and best got rid of. There is also a need to buy in people's help. People refer to the Government's initiatives on the smart economy as the smart alec economy. They do not see the Government as doing much with regard to the smart economy apart from making announcements about it. They do not feel the Government knows what it is talking about when it discusses a smart economy and what it will do for the country.

A large number of small very specialised companies work with software and micro-engineering, which I do not quite understand. We could assist them in a far more positive way but, instead, we seem to have a big notion of a smart economy, which we keep speaking about. The smart economy is quickly going the same way as the announcements on 300,000 jobs to be created over five years. I remember prior to the most recent general election there was a big announcement of 300,000 jobs to be created over a number of years. The same five Ministers were lined up in front of the cameras to have their pictures taken. Unfortunately, what has happened is that we have lost 300,000 jobs, but that is a story for another day.

There is a need for the Government to put forward proposals the public can buy into and can believe will happen. Proposals are often put to Ministers which are a bit different or difficult to understand. People in the business community have a sense that Ministers are great at paying lip service but do not seem to have the inclination to follow through and drive forward some of these projects. This motion is about showing that Government policy is failing because businesses are failing faster and showing how difficult it is to obtain credit. The Minister for Finance poured cold water over some of these proposals in the Lower House. There is a need for the Government to be more open-minded and to try to identify what works. There is also a need for it to change how it does business and realise we are in a different environment and that we need to knuckle down and get things done.