Ruth Coppinger
Question:18. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will report on the costs to the Exchequer of initiatives contained in the Action Plan for Jobs 2014. [29911/14]
View answerThursday, 10 July 2014
Questions (18)
Written answers
The 2014 Action Plan for Jobs contains 385 actions to support job creation which will be delivered across all Government Departments and over 40 public bodies. The actions include measures to support entrepreneurship, improve the capability of indigenous companies, deepen the impact of foreign direct investment, improve our competitiveness, and support the development of key sectors of the economy.
Many of the initiatives under the Action Plan for Jobs are aimed at reducing administrative burdens on business and do not require Exchequer funding. For example, within my own Department, procedures have been streamlined to reduce processing times for Employment Permits and to facilitate the on-line filing of returns to the Companies Registrations Office. Supports to mico-enterprises have been reformed through the creation of the Local Enterprise Offices, and a major restructuring of the workplace relations bodies is taking place which will improve the efficiency of those bodies and help to bring disputes to a speedier conclusion. Other initiatives in areas such as Big Data are leveraging inputs from the enterprise sector.
There are, of course, Exchequer costs associated with many other initiatives in the Action Plan for Jobs and funding for these is included in the budgetary allocations of the relevant Departments. These allocations are negotiated by Departments as part of the annual Estimates cycle and funding for specific Action Plan measures may be a sub-set of a broader budget line for a Department or agency. In these circumstances, and given the range of measures being delivered across all Departments, it is not feasible to disaggregate the Exchequer costs of initiatives under the Action Plan for Jobs.
However, the Action Plan has been effective in prioritising the areas where Exchequer resources are being directed to support job creation. We have, for instance, seen funding being allocated to initiatives such as the new Trading On-Line voucher scheme as well as a suite of measures to improve access to finance for SMEs. Additional manpower has also been provided to IDA Ireland this year to intensify our efforts to grow employment through foreign direct investment.