Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

I propose to share time with Senator Marc MacSharry. I welcome the Minister of State and I am delighted the Government has taken the initiative to appoint a Minister of State with responsibility for the small business sector. The Minister of State outlined that there are 250,000 small businesses here, employing approximately 700,000 people. It is vitally important to the Irish economy and is the lifeblood of the economy. Senator Kelly referred to a number of issues that affect small businesses. I agree with him on the point about commercial rates. This must be tackled.

The other matter is the business finance available to small businesses in each of the sectors of the economy. This includes farming. The farming section of one of the national newspapers suggests that farming business loans will increase by 2%, which will have a draconian effect on the farming sector and on small businesses in the agri-food sector.

Another anomaly concerns the social welfare code and its prohibitive effect on people entering or setting up small businesses. Someone who wants to start a small business may decide not to go down that road because if the business fails, the person is not entitled to social welfare payments as a self-employed person. Employees who worked for the person are entitled to social welfare benefits and this is an anomaly that must be tackled. Otherwise, people will not take the initiative to establish small businesses.

The jobs initiative programme was announced by the Government recently. It was a departure from the pre-election hype surrounding the NewERA document and the announcement by the Taoiseach in the Dáil on 9 March of a jobs budget within 100 days in office. There appears to be no target on the number of jobs to be created under the jobs initiative. There was reference to 20,900 places in the training aspect of the initiative, so perhaps the Minister of State could clarify the number of jobs we are looking at. The Taoiseach outlined in the Dáil last week that the jobs initiative may have a limited impact on the live register. What impact will the jobs initiative have in tackling the problem of 440,000 remaining unemployed?

Some aspects of the jobs initiative seem to rehash the capital side of funding for the 2011 budget from the previous Government. Approximately 70% of the €135 million in capital funding allocated in the jobs initiative was already allocated to Departments by the previous Government. On the training scheme side, although there are 20,900 additional training places, only 10,000 are new. The Government internship programme for unemployed graduates was announced in the last budget and the jobs initiative has made the same announcement while cutting the allocation available to graduates from €100 in addition to social welfare entitlements to €50 in addition to the social welfare entitlement. I know many graduates who are annoyed with that cut.