This year alone, I have been interviewed five times by five different economic consultants on behalf of Departments examining how bureaucracy and regulation impinge on small businesses. We have had report after report but nothing is being done. This is the single largest issue that needs to be addressed.
There are three elements to this issue that need to be tackled differently. The first of these is the examination of what is already on the Statute Book and assessing and reducing the costs of that. The Small Firms Association advocates the use of a standard cost model in that regard.
The second element is the need to introduce regulatory assessments for all new legislation. I have seen many documents claiming this is Government policy. However, when Departments are requested for such an assessment, they claim they do not have to carry out one. It may be the case that this should be introduced into law to ensure it happens. If one does not understand the costs and benefits of a new regulation, is that good legislation?
For example, our retail members estimate the cost of implementing the provisions of the Intoxicating Liquor Bill 2008, such as alcohol being stored behind a counter and building shops within existing shops, will come to €200 million. No cost benefit analysis has been carried out on this proposal. The Employment Law Compliance Bill 2008 has the potential to cease all job creation. Again, no assessment was carried out on the implications of the Bill's provisions.
The third element is the red tape nightmare — the administrative burdens from filling in forms to getting permits. As one of our council members stated to me, if he were not in Leinster House this morning, he would be in his office filling in Government forms regarding compliance.
The high level group on business regulation, chaired by Mr. Sean Gorman and of which I am a member, has done good work in this regard. It is due to report shortly to the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coughlan. Although much remains to be done, this type of approach, whereby businesses have access to a forum where they can identify specific red tape issues that Departments can act upon in a way that produces demonstrable cost savings, is the way to go.
The three elements I identified come under the remit of various Departments. While the lead Departments, including the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, may perform well in this regard, the difficulty is getting that message into the other Departments whose activities also impact on business. That is one of the key priorities for us. We are aware of the Government's agenda but the business of issuing more and more reports and paying economic consultancies to do work that could be done by civil servants is another matter.
On the issue of community enterprise, many of our members already operate in the community enterprise spectrum. I was a member of the board of a community enterprise centre for many years. These centres do fantastic work but there is a significant level of confusion in the sector. The committee could do much in terms of offering a definitive articulation of what we want the community enterprise sector to achieve, particularly in view of rising unemployment and the emergence of economic black spots.
Community enterprise has the scope and potential to deliver effective results. Most if not all existing enterprise centres are operating at full capacity. This illustrates the level of demand from business start-ups for low-rent accommodation. The community enterprise centre model is an excellent one and support should be available to allow it to expand, including support for existing centres to expand their premises. The community enterprise sector has provided a phenomenal service to local communities in providing people with genuine opportunities to set up their own businesses. We should promote entrepreneurship in view of the increasing numbers of redundancies, particularly in those sectors where it may not be as easy for people to acquire the new skills necessary to secure a return to employment.
In the past three years, we have done major work on ethnic entrepreneurship through the Emerge programme, which receives funding from the EU's EQUAL initiative. Our findings document was launched three years ago by Deputy Deirdre Clune, as Lord Mayor of Cork, and we sent copies to all Members and Ministers. Based on those findings, we have clearly demonstrated through our pilot projects in Cork, Galway and Dublin that the way to promote ethnic entrepreneurship is to target ethnic entrepreneurs directly. These are people who have come to the State without any knowledge of our banking system or of how government works. They are often suspicious of public bodies as a result of their experience in their own countries. It is up to us to make them aware of the supports that exist. Irish people will eventually find their way around the system and will know, for example, how to locate an enterprise centre. We take thousands of calls every year from people seeking that type of information. In the case of ethnic communities, however, we have to walk the streets in an effort to inform people of the available supports.
There is also a need for specific pre-enterprise supports and start-up training for non-nationals. Again, there are additional difficulties for people from other countries in terms of cultural differences, business language and an understanding of how business is done in Ireland. The 200 participants who came through the programme had a much higher success rate than those participating in a typical start your own business programme, and it was clear that they wanted to integrate with the mainstream business network as quickly as possible. They participated in our members' evenings and events and were able to meet people already in business here. This was an extremely welcome initiative.
There must be some differentiation of supports as between encouraging and assisting start-ups and integrating them fully at a later stage. We have made a submission to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Minister of State with responsibility for integration issues which makes the case for specific funding to support ethnic entrepreneurship. We estimate that a provision of €250,000 would allow this programme to be rolled out successfully through the enterprise board structure. This is not a case of creating new bureaucracies but rather of proceeding in a slightly different way which will have an extremely positive outcome. It has been clearly demonstrated that Irish people are more entrepreneurial when they go abroad. A similar pattern is evident among immigrants to this country. The 200 people who participated in the programme included 30 different nationalities, all with different priorities and concerns. Encouraging that type of diversity fits in with the broader integration agenda. If we can encourage business people from ethnic minority backgrounds into the mainstream of business life in Ireland, there will be an opportunity to counteract many of the social issues arising from immigration, including the emergence of ghettos and so on. This issue has a far wider resonance than merely the business or enterprise agenda.
On job creation and economic black spots, we have several proposals for targeting support to encourage specific groups back into the workforce. In general, there has been a long-standing issue in that there cannot be competitive regions, towns, gateways and so on unless the infrastructure is there to support them. I refer not only to physical infrastructure in terms of roads and public transport but to communications technologies. In regard to broadband availability, the figures from the Department are not accepted by any of the social partners as reflecting reality. People cannot avail of broadband in many parts of the State even if the map says they can. There is much work to be done in this regard.
I will focus on three specific issues with reference to workers' rights, namely, the Employment Law Compliance Bill 2008, the proposed EU directive on agency workers and the Green Paper on pensions. The Employment Law Compliance Bill criminalises employers. It includes provision for 23 criminal prosecutions, many of which relate to administrative issues. For example, employers must provide employees with a detailed statement of their duties when they leave employment. Employers must obtain and retain a copy of a passport for every employee, which is essentially a national identity card in disguise. Small business owners must draft legally mandated notices and translate them into the language of every employee, and then find a notice board on which to put them. In addition, the Bill proposes record-keeping requirements that contradict the provisions of existing employment law. The list goes on.
We have made a 40-page submission on this Bill, which we contend represents a reaction on the part of the Government to the Gama and Irish Ferries case. Legislating on the basis of two isolated incidents, which occurred in large companies, is simply bad law. This morning, the European Commission published its proposal for a small business Act for Europe. This is a recognition of the necessity of thinking small first. Every Bill should be examined from the perspective of its impact on employers with one to three employees and work out from there. If the Commission has accepted this principle, we should do the same. It is the right way to make law.
There must be a balance between workers' rights and those of employers. Small business owner-managers generally know as little about bureaucratic requirements as do employees because they are trying to deal with everything else. My colleagues will share their personal experiences presently. Criminalising people who want to create jobs is the surest way of hindering job creation. Why would anybody tolerate a situation where a minor breach of bureaucratic requirements might lead to a criminal prosecution and a subsequent disbarment by the office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement? I cannot overemphasise our concerns in regard to this Bill.
The draft EU directive on temporary agency workers has moved ahead of itself since it was debated by the committee. It is now back to us as social partners to negotiate the terms locally. We are committed to doing so within the current review of Towards 2016. We want to have those terms agreed before we sign off on a deal.
Many submissions were made in regard to the Green Paper on pensions but nothing has persuaded us that there are clear and compelling reasons to implement mandatory pensions. On the contrary, such a move would be disastrous for both employers and employees in the current economic environment. We are strongly convinced that the system must be simplified in a way that still encourages people to save. The Government has an important job in ensuring that the State pension provides a poverty-proofing layer, which is not currently the case.
Rather than pass the State's obligations on to business and individuals, the current policy must be reviewed. The model we envisage is a simple SSIA-type scheme where people's contributions are matched in euros rather than tax credits. It should include a carrot in the form of an option to take out a certain percentage in five years' time. This would encourage people to save because they have the fall-back option of drawing down some of the funds in the future.
However, if five years later they do not wish to do so because they may have more money, are older and wiser and realise they need to continue to save, it would be a carrot that would be cashed in rarely but which would close the gap that exists in getting people in their 20s and 30s to save.
As this constitutes a sweeping summary of many issues, I hope I have been clear and I will be happy to discuss them.