Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to talk about local enterprise offices and the Intreo offices.I seek the support of the House to call on the Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to give both these important offices extra supports at this time when we are opening up the country. According to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office, we have 248,000 small businesses that employ between one and ten workers. I do not know about businesses in other places but I know that in Clare one cannot rely on the big businesses and the multinationals as one does not know how long they will stay around. However, one can rely on small businesses doing everything they can to keep their employees and themselves in business. The local enterprise offices have played a blinder in the last 14 months in supporting small businesses but I know from speaking to those in that sector that they need extra supports and additional staff. As we open up the economy, more jobs will come onstream. The Intreo offices are dealing with people who are unemployed and looking for work. It is important for those two offices to connect more and to get the supports to do so. In that way, we could get people off the live register but also give them choices in jobs that might keep them employed, as opposed to being forced to take a job simply because it is available but which they might drop out of later. We all want to do work that is valuable and for which we are appreciated. There is no better sector than the small business sector to appreciate its workers. Working in that sector is more like being in a family than working for a large corporation. We underestimate the power and importance of the small business sector in Ireland. We have nearly a quarter of a million small businesses with fewer than ten employees in the country. Clare has approximately 6,000 small businesses providing 66,000 jobs. We need to focus more on the Intreo offices and the small business sector to support small businesses in finding staff and also to support people who want to come off social welfare.