Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the efforts he has made to reduce the cost of doing business in the past two years. [9066/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Reducing costs for business is a central theme of the Action Plan for Jobs. The 2012 Action Plan included an extensive range of measures across Government which will help to reduce costs for business generally and support job creation.

My Department and agencies have undertaken several initiatives to support this objective, including: reforming the statutory wage setting mechanisms; reducing administrative burdens by 24.9% in the areas of Employment Law, Company Law and Health & Safety Law, amounting to potential annual savings for business of almost €207 million; reductions were also made last year in various fees charged by the Registrar of Friendly Societies to co-operative societies, and by the Patents Office for certain patents and design services.

There is also a range of other cost reduction measures being pursued by other Government Ministers through the work of their own Departments and bodies under their remit. Examples include the freezing or reduction of the Annual Rate of Valuation (ARV) by 87 out of 88 Local Authorities in 2012, and the exemption of payment of Corporation Tax for new business start-ups in their early years of operation.

Updates on these, and all other commitments in the 2012 Action Plan for Jobs, are detailed in the Quarterly Progress Reports on the Plan which are available on my Department’s website, www.enterprise.gov.ie.

Further pro-enterprise tax measures were announced in Budget 2013, including further improvements to the Corporation Tax relief for start-up companies and the increasing of the cash receipts basis threshold for VAT, which will improve cash-flow for small and medium sized enterprises.

The 2013 Action Plan for Jobs will build on the progress made last year and will set out a number of new initiatives to further reduce business costs and support job creation. The Plan has been approved by Government and will be launched in the coming days.