Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate her on her new role - I may have already done so in person, but I now do so formally. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the topic of the EU's role in enterprise, innovation and job creation. It is a timely topic, particularly for somebody with a connection to Trinity College - the Minister of State also has a connection. Last Friday the new biomedical sciences institute was opened in Trinity College. I was privileged to attend the opening at which Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn was the keynote speaker. The institute, which is the biggest capital project undertaken by the university to date, cost €131 million of which €80 million was invested by the State. Of the rest of the investment, some funding came from private benefactions but some came as a loan from the European Development Bank.

The EU is playing a very key role in this institute. The institute represents what we should be doing in terms of innovation and job creation strategies. Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn emphasised this in her keynote address in saying that the European Commission has put research and innovation at the top of the European agenda and she put the new Trinity institute in that context. She pointed out that the work to be done in the biomedical sciences institute will deliver jobs in health and help improve public health and quality of life. It has a number of different focuses. It will provide very impressive accommodation for 700 researchers and 900 students. It will be a driver in innovation and research in biomedical sciences.

Of course it is expected that it will also have a large role to play in job creation. Earlier Senator Crown spoke about the enormous potential of the biomedical sector for job creation and it is already a major part of our economy. Nine out of the ten biggest life sciences and pharmaceutical companies have a significant presence in Ireland. The sector, encompassing pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices and diagnostics, employs more than 47,000 people in Ireland and is clearly an enormous growth area. It is also very much an area of added value where research and development jobs play a large part in the companies located here.

The Trinity institute is a collaborative institute with other universities and institutes of technology across Ireland. It not only seeks to train people to work for the big companies located here, but also clearly seeks to develop innovation and create companies here. I know the Minister of State is very aware of the campus company innovation and the sort of innovations that have come out of that, where academic research has spawned discoveries which in turn have become commercialised. There are a number of well known examples of this, including Opsona, a biomedical spin-off, and Solvotrin, a pharmaceutical spin-off.

We can see how investment in the third level sector can directly stimulate innovation. It is not just about training people to go and work in big companies or to go and work abroad - although that is a very important role for the third level sector - it is also about fostering and stimulating entrepreneurship and innovation. In all of that it is critical to have support from the EU on a number of levels. The Minister of State referred to some of the different programmes, including FP7, and the strong success rate of Irish applicants in securing funding under that framework programme. That programme has specific Marie Curie actions for commercial enterprises. A great deal of SP7 is of direct relevance to initiatives in Ireland in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sector. It is worth emphasising our 24% success rate in securing funding from those EU funds.

There are also other EU funds and other ways in which the EU can support small businesses. The Minister of State and others have referred to some of the other initiatives for small and medium-sized enterprises that have been taken at EU level, including the Small Business Act for Europe introduced in 2008 and aimed at cutting red tape. I suppose the EU has tended to get a bad press in terms of imposing quite onerous obligations on small companies - it can be very difficult for small companies to comply with those. However, there is a growing recognition at EU level of the need to be somewhat more rational in the imposition of administrative requirements. It is just a feature of EU life. I speak as somebody who in the past was part of a consortium that recently got EU funding for research in Trinity into fundamental rights protections across the Union, and also in the past got EU funding for other research programmes into criminal justice systems across the Union.

I am aware of the amount of red tape that must be gone through to justify and secure funding at EU level. It is worth going through it, however. While it is difficult to comply with the obligations, particularly with regard to research funds, many obligations imposed by the European Union and the conditions pertaining to funding are for the purpose of ensuring transparency in how those funds are spent. This is critical.

Let me refer to a recent case I raised on the Order of Business last week although it may not be directly relevant to this topic. It was a case taken to the European Court of Justice by Irish barrister Mr. Ciarán Toland, who was represented by former Senator, Mr. Eugene Regan. The case, won by Mr. Toland, was to gain access to a report on expenditure of allowances by Members of the European Parliament. It is an interesting case because the report has been more or less fully leaked into the public domain. While it was in the public domain, it had never been officially published. Until I read the account of the case, I was not aware that the European Parliament had refused to release the report. Mr. Toland could successfully argue that it was irrational to withhold publication and that, in the interest of transparency and accountability, the Parliament should be publishing such reports. We would agree with that. When talking about red tape and the need for the European Union to be more rational about the administrative requirements it imposes, we should realise those requirements are imposed to ensure accountability and transparency. In spite of this, there is a lack of transparency and accountability regarding the reports of some EU institutions.

Other initiatives taken at EU level to support enterprise include focusing on groups that are under-represented. Senator van Turnhout referred to the need to support young people in respect of entrepreneurship. While this is essential, it is worth mentioning initiatives at EU level to encourage women entrepreneurs. Women tend to comprise a smaller proportion of entrepreneurs than men. As part of the Small Business Act initiative, a varied range of supports has been set up to promote entrepreneurship among women, particularly women graduates. There is a European network of mentors for women entrepreneurs, and a network of female entrepreneurship ambassadors. What is Ireland's participation on those networks and at what stage of advancement are they? I was not significantly aware of them heretofore. It is worth engaging in promotion at national level as well as EU level. Having seen figures on women in industry and business, and on entrepreneurship in Ireland, I noted that while there are some very high-profile women who are very strong role models, women in general do not comprise as large a proportion of entrepreneurs as men.

My colleague Senator Heffernan will be talking more about the European Union's role in job creation in the agriculture sector. There used to be a perception that the Common Agricultural Policy rewarded the opposite of entrepreneurship and tended to stifle the development of agriculture. It is important to welcome changes to ensure greater sustainability in agriculture, both in Ireland and other member states.

A debate such as this could not really make sense unless we are also critical of the European Union and its structures. Other Members have referred to the Union hampering job creation in Ireland. We are speaking at a time when the French President is suggesting we should change our corporation tax rate in order to obtain room for manoeuvre on the IMF-ECB deal. I am glad the Government is taking a very strong line of resistance to the suggestion by President Sarkozy because the 12.5% corporation tax rate is clearly a vital component of our job creation and retention strategies. It must be maintained. Although the European Union is supplying supports through programmes such as FP7 and the initiatives to encourage women entrepreneurs, the current bailout package, of which we are all too aware, is not sufficiently supportive of enterprise and entrepreneurship in Ireland. In many cases, it is serving to stifle it. We are all aware that the European Central Bank has played a very tough role in negotiations involving both the previous and current Governments. It is fair to say, therefore, that the European Union does not have a consistently good role in supporting job creation in member states, particularly this one. Any debate must acknowledge that.

We need to look to our colleagues in other member states to support us this week in an attempt to reduce the interest rate and oppose President Sarkozy's position. I remember the former Minister for Finance and I arguing during the general election campaign in January and early February 2011. I argued strongly about our sense that there was goodwill directed towards us by other EU member states. Since the change of Government, we have been aware that this good-will was severely tested and that other EU member states, notably France and Germany, are taking a very hard line against us. We must emphasise in any debate we have on the role of the European Union that we must not separate the Union's promotion of small business and its support for small to medium enterprises from its role in bailouts and in giving loans to countries whose conditions are so difficult that they are stifling enterprise and job creation therein. This is not only a factor for us in Ireland but also one for other countries in similar positions, such as Portugal.

We talk about boosting job creation through start-up funds, etc. There are some excellent indigenous examples. On the radio this morning, we heard about the Longford Business Angel model whereby a group of local businesspeople in Longford has invested money to set up a start-up fund for small businesses in its area. This is the type of bottom-up strategy for fostering small business that can really work. There are similar models at EU level also and Irish companies have been relatively successful at drawing down funding. This, however, is at the micro-level. When we examine the macro-level and EU policy towards this State, we see a very different picture in terms of support for small business and job creation.

Members have referred to other steps we can take. They stated the Union can offer support in terms of job creation. We are all aware that, under the last Government, one quarter of men employed in the country were in the construction sector. Perhaps the biggest challenge in job creation is the reskilling, re-education and retraining of young men, many of whom left school because the opportunities in construction were so lucrative and are now finding it very difficult to find employment. Measures aimed at supporting training and re-skilling and the rebranding and re-creation of FÁS are all vital Government measures in respect of which I believe the EU will and should be supportive.

Some of this debate reminds me of a famous scene in "The Life of Brian" in that I am prompted to ask: "What has the EU ever done for us?" It really is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, we have great initiatives such as the Small Business Act and FP7, but on the other hand there is a big-stick approach at macro-level when we seek funding, despite the fact that the European Central Bank was very remiss for a long time in allowing excessive lending.