Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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266. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which she remains satisfied regarding the competitiveness of the economy vis-a-vis all other; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39323/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, my focus is on improving Ireland’s competitiveness performance. Ensuring Ireland is a competitive location internationally to establish and run a business is essential for job creation. In July of this year, the National Competitiveness Council published its annual Competitiveness Scorecard benchmarking report which provides an in-depth assessment of all aspects of Ireland’s international competitiveness performance. The Council found that while Ireland’s competitiveness has improved in recent years, and has been central to recent strong economic growth, a number of threats persist, not least of which is Brexit. The analysis contained in the Council’s Competiveness Scorecard report is informing the development of the Council’s annual policy report Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2016, which I will shortly be bringing to Government for consideration and which will contain a range of actions to enhance competitiveness.

Brexit means we must do more across a wide range of policy areas to enhance our attractiveness as a location to start and locate a business relative to the UK. The most recent data from the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business shows that Ireland is ahead of the UK in terms of ease of starting a business and paying tax but is behind the UK in the overall rankings.

To improve business competiveness we must consolidate Ireland’s traditional strengths and address those areas where we lag other countries. We are stepping up investment in infrastructure and SMEs access to finance is improving. We are reforming our tax system to encourage enterprise growth. We are driving the implementation of our research strategy Innovation 2020. As part of Budget 2017 my Department secured additional resources for our enterprise agencies to put more people on the ground in foreign markets to attract investment and to help Irish business who export to the UK and helping others diversify into new markets. I have asked that Enterprise Ireland intensify its work with clients exporting to the UK by providing support to improve their competitiveness in the market through its management capability and development programmes such as LEAN.

My officials will continue to monitor Ireland’s competitiveness publications such as the IMD, the World Bank Doing Business report. Further actions and reforms - driven by the 2017 Action Plan for Jobs which is currently being prepared - will enable us to further narrow the gap with the world’s most competitive countries and improve the ease of doing business, ultimately helping us to achieve our objective of sustainable full employment.