Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I sympathise with Derek Davis's family. Every time I saw him on the screen he had a smile and there was a lot going on behind his smile. He was a great communicator. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

I welcome today's announcement by the company behind the workplace messaging application Slack that it is coming to Ireland. It is a big technology company belonging to the owners of Flickr, the photo-sharing software. That is a great announcement. I also welcome the Government's announcement that it is to encourage people to start up their own companies, which came out yesterday evening. People will be able to reclaim tax from investment for six years. There was a seed capital fund in place which was similar, but as Mark Fielding from ISME said, it was so convoluted and difficult to access that take-up was very slow. The new scheme announced by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, is called SURE. It will make it easier for ordinary people, particularly those who are retired and have a few bob with which they want to start a company, to claim back the tax. There will be less red tape than with the old seed capital scheme, and the new scheme will also be open to those who are unemployed or have been made redundant. Mr. Fielding said one would need a degree in linguistics to read the instructions for the old scheme, never mind apply for it.

I wish to ask for a debate in the House. The Minister of State, Deputy Nash, has set up a high-level group looking at regulations and red tape for small businesses, specifically how to make the regulatory input analysis, RIA, easier for small businesses starting up. It is ten years since the regulatory input analysis was set up. The Minister of State is asking for submissions and has written to the various committees. We should discuss this in the Seanad as well, as we are getting a lot of queries. What better place to discuss how to make it easier and how the Government could make it more accessible?