Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

As some of the questions asked are well beyond my remit, I am not in a position to answer them.

I acknowledge Senator Keane's point that there is a gap in enterprise support. One of our ambitions is to have a more seamless system. We cannot support every company in the light of resource implications. However, companies with potential for expansion should not be debarred from receiving support simply because they do not pass some pre-qualification test. To be fair, the threshold of ten employees to which the Senator referred is not being applied to companies with export potential. Enterprise Ireland is taking a more flexible approach to the efforts of smaller companies which have export ambition.

The transfer of agency workers Bill will transpose an EU directive. It is unusual in that it gives the opportunity for the social partners to agree among themselves on certain terms, derogations or flexibilities. The State is obliged to introduce the terms of the directive but the social partners can negotiate certain flexibilities. I have convened the social partners to determine how that can be done. Obviously, there are different views on this on both sides of social partnership, so it will be difficult. This is an EU directive which has a transposition date, and Ireland is obliged to introduce it. There are flexibilities in it. We must be conscious of our employment situation in applying the rules under it and give ourselves some scope.

It is correct that there must be a business plan to underpin the sale of State assets. In addition, as Senators probably know, there is an obligation under the EU-IMF programme to generate revenue from the sale of assets. The Government is considering the development of certain options and analysing other options for fulfilling that obligation. Some of these options are the subject of discussion in the other House. Clearly, each of these must be explored in detail, but the Ministers concerned believe that the options that have been spelled out are the best way, and sound business analysis has been done on why these are being put forward. Obviously, Senators need to take this up with a Minister who will give them chapter and verse.

I was asked whether a cost-benefit analysis was done on the jobs initiative. To an extent, there was. If we cut employer's PRSI, the ESRI can provide an analysis of the likely impact in the short and longer term, and we can rely on that. Part of the jobs initiative was also to advertise the fact that Ireland is open for business and that we want to reduce the cost to employers of taking people on. It is about building confidence. There was sufficient cost-benefit analysis to say that a cut in the lower rate of employer's PRSI was a worthwhile thing to do. We will never be able to say with any degree of accuracy that X thousand jobs were created by it. What I am hearing is that it has been significant, particularly in sectors related to tourism, which was what it was geared at, and that it has helped companies that were otherwise under severe pressure to develop new offerings.