on Wednesday, 27 April 2005

Good morning to you all, and thanks to Laois County Enterprise Board for their invitation to me to address this Conference on Optimising the Environment for Enterprise.

The title for this Conference is extremely well chosen for it encapsulates in one single phrase the essence of the Government’s current domestic economic policy. The general orientation of that policy is aimed at creating a competitive climate which is conducive to productive entrepreneurial activity which places a high priority on serving the needs of enterprise. I am very pleased, therefore, to have the opportunity to say a few words to you before you launch into the substantive work of this important Conference.

In the face of ever-intensifying competition amongst the major economic blocks or regions around the globe the European Union has set itself a no lesser goal than to become the world’s strongest, most competitive and most dynamic economy by the year 2010. A threefold strategy to achieve this objective is already in place:

1. the use of knowledge and innovation as key instruments to promote growth
2. making Europe a more attractive place in which to invest and work and
3. boosting employment and enhancing the quality of jobs.

Taken together this objective and strategy are now better known as the Lisbon Agenda. Ireland is an enthusiastic supporter of the Lisbon Agenda but, if we are, it is imperative that we not only align our domestic policies and priorities with the overall orientation of the Community’s action plan but that we make a meaningful and measurable contribution to the common Community effort. Let me tell you that the Government is fully determined to deliver that contribution.

Enterprise competitiveness within Europe as a whole is crucial to the success of the Community’s economic mission. So too is it crucial to the Irish economy and to its stability and sustainability into the future. But what is competitiveness? Its component elements are myriad. A commitment to research and to innovate is needed; marketing and pricing strategies must be right and so too must labour costs; the corporate and personal taxation regime must be pitched so as to maximise productivity within enterprise; education for enterprise must become an intrinsic feature of the education system; continuous development of, and the provision of adequate funding for, our infrastructure in areas like transport, communications, energy, research, etc. are also vital elements of the mix; and generally a business-friendly climate must be fostered and maintained.

Let me take up this latter point for a few moments and consider, in the context of to-day’s Conference, the climate we have here in Ireland for supporting entrepreneurship. The first thing to say about it is that it must already be reasonably good to judge from recent and current performances and trends.

In fact the emergence of a genuine culture of entrepreneurship in Ireland has been one of the most satisfying developments of the past decade. Company start-ups are now happening in every sector of the economy and our entrepreneurs are displaying a keen drive and ambition to succeed in business. Many of these new enterprises are setting up in rural areas where they are having a knock-on effect in local communities in terms of employment, demand for goods and services and interlinkages with other companies.

Much of your deliberations today will centre on the role and the needs of the small business sector and the opportunities within that sector to create new enterprises. The small business sector has a vital role to play in our economy and the State, through the agency of the CEBs, is committed to delivering the kinds of supports and assistance which will help those enterprises to thrive and endure. The services, incentives and promotional activities of the 35 CEBs have had, and are continuing to have, a significant impact in fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship at local levels up and down the country.

Their cumulative efforts since their foundation just a decade ago have been instrumental in generating 17,050 new businesses and 33,687 new jobs, 400 of these projects and 1000 of these jobs being in County Laois alone. CEB interventions in 2004 brought in 864 new businesses and 1,635 additional jobs.

The CEBs have an active engagement with the education sector in designing the shape and content of study courses in education for enterprise. That engagement is having the highly desirable effect of getting the message across to our young people that the entrepreneurial path is indeed a realistic and desirable career option for them. More and more women, I’m glad to see, are now coming forward as enterprise leaders and employers thanks to such CEB initiatives as the Women-in-Business and Start-Your-Own-Business programmes. Advancement of the gender equality principle is now a core value in the CEB approach to delivery of their statutory mission.

The Irish economy is indeed entrepreneurially active and our levels of entrepreneurship compare very favourably with – or even exceed – those of Europe generally. However, we still lag behind the leading entrepreneurial nations, particularly the US, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia, and too few of our indigenous firms go on to become world-beating players. We literally cannot afford to be complacent or to bask in the glory of recent successes. We have to benchmark ourselves against the standards set by the best, the strongest and the most productive economies in the world.

So what’s to be done? At national level you can be assured that the Government will continue to operate and adapt the policies and policy instruments which most effectively meet the challenges of the new competitiveness agenda and which best provide for the long-term stability of the economy and the sustainability of high living standards for our people. But here today the immediate focus of your Conference is the small business sector. No doubt, as the day progresses, you will be looking at the specific challenges facing that sector and at actions which might be taken to gear it for ongoing growth, productivity and profitability. Let me feed into that a few of my own thoughts.

Firstly, the acquisition and generation of knowledge for innovation within individual enterprises is a vital necessity. To date our performance on this score has only been mediocre. That is why the Government has placed R&D centre-stage in its strategic action for development and growth. Our various support agencies, including CEBs, must also keep this requirement to the forefront as they continue to develop interventions to promote and assist ongoing incremental growth within their client companies.

Secondly, as knowledge becomes the basis for competition, greater harmony and complementarity must be brought to bear on our education and economic policy-making and strategic action planning. In this particular regard we still have quite some catching up to do here in Ireland to match the attainments of the most advanced economies worldwide. Carefully conceived and targeted school-level interventions in areas of social disadvantage can have substantial benefit in reversing the already unacceptably high second-level school drop-out rate and in maximising the number of our citizens who can productively and gainfully participate in the knowledge economy.

Thirdly, the quality of jobs in our enterprises needs to be raised as a means of ensuring their survivability and capacity to deliver improved productivity. Our training policies and the interventions of our State sector training providers must keep a clear focus on this imperative. But so too must our enterprises themselves: competitiveness-related and innovation-related considerations are dictating that our business leaders must take primary responsibility for the training/education needs of job-holders in their own individual enterprises and for making available to them the training that best addresses their specific skills gaps.

Finally, our enterprise promotion agencies must extend and deepen the heretofore good work they’ve been doing in encouraging higher levels of female participation in enterprise generation. There are still far too many obstacles and prejudices out there militating against women in the field of business: these have got to be removed. Here I would like to salute the worthwhile work being done by CEBs through such initiatives as the Women-in-Business and Start-Your-Own-Business programmes and through the tailoring of training services to meet requirements that are specific to women business leaders and women jobholders.

As I said at the outset, your Conference is a timely one and an important one. The structure and content of its agenda reflect very thoughtful planning while the line-up of speakers, each eminently qualified and experienced in their own individual fields of endeavour, is sure to do justice to the urgency and importance of your Conference theme Optimising the Environment for Enterprise. I now declare the Conference open and wish it every success.

ENDS

TC151