Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 24: To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will report on the publication of Ireland's competitiveness scorecard 2011 by the National Competitiveness Council. [24418/11]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 32: To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the reports or recommendations he has received from the National Competitiveness Council which reports to him. [24419/11]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 24 and 32 together.

Ireland's Competitiveness Scorecard 2011 was published by the National Competitiveness Council on 6th September. This annual benchmarking report analyses Ireland's competitiveness performance using 127 statistical indicators. These range from measures such as economic growth and quality of life, to policy inputs that will drive future competitiveness across areas such as the education system and the delivery of infrastructure. Drawing primarily on data from international sources (e.g. OECD, Eurostat, UN, etc.), the report benchmarks Ireland's performance, comparing and ranking it against 17 of our key competitors and the OECD or EU average.

The 2011 Scorecard finds that our competitiveness performance is mixed, with strengths in areas such as export performance, inward investment and improved productivity, but with weaknesses in other areas, including prices and labour costs. The National Competitiveness Council, in the report, states that a renewed focus on cost competitiveness is fundamental to our economic recovery. Notwithstanding the fact that cost competitiveness gains have been made since 2008, further significant progress is required to ensure Irish enterprises can compete internationally.

In addition to the annual benchmarking report, the National Competitiveness Council each year publishes "Ireland's Competitiveness Challenge", which, drawing from the benchmarking exercise, outlines the main challenges to Ireland's competitiveness and the policy responses required to meet them. The 2011 report will be submitted to the Government in the coming weeks for consideration. I have asked the NCC to ensure that the report focuses on specific actionable proposals that will drive Ireland's continued economic recovery.

The NCC also prepares a report on the "Costs of Doing Business in Ireland". The most recent report in this series was published in June of this year. The report analyses Ireland's cost competitiveness across five key business inputs: Labour costs, Property costs, Utility costs, Business and Professional Services costs and indirect business costs such as consumer prices. The main findings of the report are similar to the Competitiveness Scorecard, in that the business environment continued to show an improvement in cost competitiveness in 2010, but deeper structural improvements are necessary to ensure that costs do not rise again as the economy recovers.

In this regard, the Costs of Doing Business report made a number of recommendations to embed competitiveness in the economy in a structural way. I have brought these recommendations to the attention of my Ministerial colleagues in Government and I will continue to work with them to identify further actions that can be taken to improve our competitiveness, reduce costs to business and remove obstacles to employment creation. As part of its work programme, the NCC publishes other papers from time to time on specific competitiveness issues. All NCC reports are available on the NCC Website, www.competitiveness.ie.