Katherine Zappone (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for attending. I also thank the Leader for holding a debate on our ideas for job creation in January so our views could feed into such an important public policy document as the action plan. I also thank the Minister for incorporating a section on social enterprise and social entrepreneurship in the action plan and I will speak a little on it. I am an advocate for social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, and will continue to champion it as an integral dimension of the Government's plan to create jobs. I will be zealous about it, not unlike the Minister and the way he presented his plan to us this afternoon. The plan is impressive, particularly its focus on implementation, the whole of Government approach and all of the different Departments involved. As he said, implementation of the plan will be difficult. It will be a complex journey but it have given us a lot of hope.

The Government has also made an explicit commitment to evidence-based and proven models for the development of public policy. It wants to create the best environment for creating jobs and, as I said, the action plan gives us a dynamic framework. This afternoon the Minister demonstrated an eloquence when describing the framework's dynamics. When developing and implementing the framework I urge him to be attentive to the evidence that has emerged on social innovation and social enterprise. Over the past 20 years it has emerged as a business model.

Earlier the Minister spoke about innovation. I shall focus on social innovation and define it as comprising new strategies, ideas, concepts and organisations that meet social needs and contribute to economic growth or, using his phrase, turn them into money. Social innovation leads to job creation. Social innovators create employment and solve social and environmental problems. It is also a key component for the reform of public services and provides initiatives and approaches that deliver higher quality public services with fewer cash resources.

The action plan contains a definition of social enterprise so we know that it is businesses or organisations set up to tackle social, economic or environmental issues. They engage in trading or commercial activities to pursue such objectives. They are not profit driven but produce excess income that is often used to further their social mission. The estimated annual revenue generated by the social enterprise sector in Ireland stands at €240 million, its annual spend in the economy is over €230 million, 9,300 people are directly employed in it and 5,100 people are indirectly employed. Many of my colleagues know or are aware of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland because it briefed us leading up to our debate on jobs. It has supported 150 social entrepreneurs and each one of them creates an average of 23 new job opportunities.

I will focus on one example of a proven model of social entrepreneurship that is ready to scale. Fledglings Early Years Education was set up in 2008 as a small business unit within a larger community organisation named An Cosán. I am a co-founder so I know the business from the inside. It is located in west Tallaght. It is a not-for-profit social franchise that supports and mentors early years educators and helps them to set up affordable services. It is like Snap Printing, the printing franchise model, but this one establishes early years education and care centres. It has created 42 new jobs over the past couple of years in five centres. It has been approached by five interested parties to replicate its model throughout Ireland with an average of nine jobs per centre. It is ready to go to scale. There is also a number of other examples of social innovation that will be demonstrated by social innovators invited to Ireland by Ashoka Ireland towards the end of March. They will share their ideas and we should be ready to listen.

The Minister's plan acknowledged the strong social enterprise base here and I welcome that he will examine its role and that a report will be developed. Recent EU announcements present a prime opportunity for us to develop the role. The European Union has recognised the significance of the social innovation sector with entrepreneurship identified by the European Commission as one of the 12 levers that will boost growth, strengthen confidence and revitalise the Single Market. Social business employs 11 million EU citizens, which is 6% of the total employment in the EU. Recently the European Commission recognised the growth potential of the model in its new social business initiative and I am happy that the initiative was noted in the action plan.

The Commission has proposed in the context of the initiative several measures under three key headings. The one I wish to emphasise is the measures to improve access to funding for social businesses. This includes developing a European regulatory framework for social investment funds and the setting up of a European financial instrument of €90 million to improve social businesses access to funding. That instrument can be effectively described as a fund of funds. The EU will establish a fund that can be accessed by the institutions of regional or member states or organisations that are providing themselves funding support to social enterprise projects.

We need the State to express its full support for the already vibrant social enterprise sector in Ireland to maximise its potential. We also need the State to take a driving role so that Ireland can avail of these opportunities at EU level. The most effective way to achieve this would be to include social innovation as part of a ministerial portfolio, for instance, under the remit of the Minster of State with responsibility for research and innovation. It should come under the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation because it is a business not a charity model. Ireland needs to engage with European developments to maximise the support from Europe and take its place as a European leader that supports social enterprise and innovation. It is particularly significant at a time when we are debating Ireland's place within the EU and the Government's efforts to advocate a "Yes" vote for the upcoming referendum. Fiscal and social compacts should go together. The Government's leadership in developing the social enterprise sector would go a long way to making that visible to voters and citizens. I would look forward to and be pleased to work with the Minister's officials in advancing this sector's potential.