James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Déanaim comhghairdeachas leis an Aire as ucht an Bille seo a thosnú sa Seanad. I welcome the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, and congratulate her on initiating the Bill in the Seanad. We have been calling for more legislation to be initiated in the Seanad and I am delighted to see the Minister taking advantage of the Seanad as the place in which to initiate Bills and iron out unforeseen problems in order that their passage through the Dáil can be smoother and more speedy.

Figures taken from the Internet show that 919,985 people are employed in SMEs, whereas one in five is employed by a multinational, which equates to a figure of approximately 400,000. The SME sector is, therefore, of significant importance and many of the enterprises involved are self-starters, which we want to encourage. I welcome the Bill which sends a strong message of help and opportunities for SMEs to avail of a lower corporation tax rate and encourage entrepreneurs. We have many entrepreneurs, some of whom come through multinational foreign direct investment companies who set up spin off enterprises on their own. The greatest examples I can think of are the companies that sprung up when Digital closed in Galway which has become the acknowledged centre of medical device innovation, for both self-starters, for example, Creganna Medical, as well as foreign direct investment companies which bring not just good jobs with good incomes but also major training opportunities which allow people to start their own companies, which I really want to encourage.

I hope a very strong message will be send following the passage of the Bill on Second Stage that there is an opportunity for small and medium enterprises. There is a large group of secondary school students in the Visitors Gallery who are very welcome. I have always been struck from the time I was Minister for Children and Youth Affairs by the level of energy, innovation and imagination of young people. It reminds me of the old maxim - if you imagine it, you can make it. Therein lies our strength as Irish people. We have tremendous imagination and have been great inventors through the years. There are now opportunities to encourage people to take advantage of their ability and open small and medium enterprises and avail of the corporation tax rate of which bigger corporations avail which other Senators have mentioned.

I thought eight minutes would be far too long because the Bill self-evidently is so positive in what it seeks to achieve and did not think I would speak for too long. The Cathaoirleach said at the start off the discussion on the Bill that it had a quare title. My retort, although he is no longer present to hear it, is it is a quare name but great stuff, just like the advertisement for Cheno Unction all those years ago, for those of us who are old enough to remember it. May I comment on one or two of the views expressed? Senator Davitt is quite correct that there has been in the pharmaceutical industry a tendency towards "me too" drugs, which require a company to change just one molecule. I do not want to mention particular drugs but I can think of one, a proton pump inhibitor for one's tummy. The leader was a particular drug and then the company got a new patent for another drug just by tweaking one molecule of the original. What is proposed obviates the necessity for that sort of carry-on. I can reassure the Senator in this regard. The Bill states very clearly that the product must be novel. Tweaking a molecule will not make it novel. It must also be non-obvious. Obviously, tweaking a molecule is kind of obvious. The Bill states that all the applications from January until it becomes law will be retrospectively examined under the same criteria so they will not suffer. There is no need to delay product development from that point of view.

I am disappointed with Senator Mac Lochlainn's approach to this Bill. He wants to talk about every social ill we have rather than address the Bill itself. With regard to what he was talking about, we have exempted half a million people from the universal social charge. We have raised the threshold for income tax before people must pay at the higher rate. We have increased the minimum wage on two occasions. We have increased the number employed to over 2 million for the first time since 2008. The unemployment rate is down this week to 7.3%. Therefore, much of the rhetoric describes problems as opposed to dealing with the Bill itself, which is to offer an opportunity to indigenous small and medium enterprises, entrepreneurs and people who might be thinking of an idea that will involve a struggle to make it work but which will involve a greater reward at the end. This is what tax considerations and concessions for research and development are all about. We need to encourage people to put money into researching new and novel techniques. We have been doing it with patents and we have done so with software. Now the focus is on other areas of novel innovation. These are the areas in which Irish people excel. I hope a strong message will be sent from the Seanad today that these measures are for every Irish man, woman and every young person who believes he or she has an idea that could work, will add value and is non-obvious and novel. I hope that message goes out loud and clear. I commend the Bill to the House.