James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House again on another important Bill that is awaited eagerly by small companies. I welcome the Bill. We would all agree that we want to support small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs, and to help them exercise their imagination and their ability to create jobs. This Bill is very important in that regard. Increasing the size threshold for small companies will help many companies that are currently in existence and it will encourage others. Simplifying the existing financial reporting requirements for small companies must be welcomed. Many people have difficulty dealing with those requirements initially when they are faced with the complexity of the current system. This reduction in red tape, as others have said, is truly welcome. The introduction of the new category of micro companies is very important also.

I wish to cite an example. The Minister was away on a trade mission and the previous Minister in her role substituted for her at an event involving a company in Swords which was set up in 2010 by a local man, Tommy Kelly, who had previously run a company called Two Way Forwarding and Logistics. He came up with an idea in 2010, set up a company with six employees and it had a turnover of €48,000. Today its turnover is €220 million. He has 120 employees and he hopes to grow that number to 400. If there was ever an example of "mighty oaks from little acorns grow", this company is it. This Bill goes a long way to supporting people like Tommy Kelly and his company, eShopWorld. Senator Boyhan's contribution was welcome in pointing out that those who are at the coalface welcome this Bill.

I want to pick up on one or two other areas that are particularly important and I want to speak specifically on them. Section 87 is designed to improve transparency of payments associated with the exploitation of natural resources that are made to governments by companies active in mining, quarrying and logging of primary forests. This is very important. There has been concern in this country for a long time about activities, certainly those abroad and here also, around issues of transparency and how our finite and very valuable natural resources are being used. More transparency on this issue is very welcome. I welcome the Minister's initiative on that issue.

I also wish to deal with the elements of section 8 allowing the courts to specify that creditors of a company that is seeking to reduce its capital can be notified as the court directs, for example, by electronic means. Again, this is another simple initiative that will make life easier for companies. It will give them the option of dealing with such matters electronically.

Section 11, which is an amendment to the Companies Act 2014, amends the definition of profit and loss account to take account of the fact that some companies, such as charities, do not make profits. That is an important aspect of this Bill that is helpful for those who are doing good work and find themselves caught in a red tape system that previously was less flexible than the Minister is now going to make it.

Section 27 concerns the disclosure of payments to directors. That is of critical importance. The more transparency around this the better. We all know the concerns we have had realised for us unfortunately during recent years about certain payments and the way they were being made.

Section 94 is also critically important. It gives the court a discretion to disqualify a person from acting as a director of a company in circumstances where the person has committed civil or criminal breaches of the law. I had earmarked another provision that I do not have marked and I will have to come back to it.

As others have said, this is an eagerly awaited Bill. We had an election in early 2016. This is complex legislation and the opportunity was availed of to correct many other issues that might not seem to be directly related to the Act but which impact negatively on business and on the public good and the public interest. Addressing those matters may have created a drag and made it a little slower for the legislation to be introduced but to miss an opportunity to have those other issues addressed, as the Minister has done, would have been a folly. I welcome the Bill. I hope the House will find favour with it and speedily pass it.