We have just completed a series of six meetings in the major cities, plus Athlone for the Midlands. It gave us the opportunity to meet close to 1,500 business people. The message that was coming back was very clear. Businesses in many sectors are struggling to hold on. Some are hanging on by their finger nails, beset by the problems of credit shortage, of the value of sterling, of high costs. They need a break if jobs are to be saved.

There are still sectors which are managing to thrive in the recession and are expanding. However, they too are frustrated by the lack of an economic direction coming from the present government. They feel that there is a gulf of understanding between official Ireland and the reality of the crisis that people in business see unfolding before their eyes. Unfortunately some people are despairing that politics can be the route to fix the many things that are broken in our economy.

The individual items that were raised were wide-ranging. Some came as no surprise:- the problems of getting credit from banks; the struggle of competing with Northern Ireland with their lower cost base and lower VAT rates; and the burden of regulations imposed by government ranging across the Minimum Wage, Local Rates, Rent Laws and other Compliance Costs. Many fear the carbon tax will be a new reason to travel north to shop.

Some new insights emerged too, such as the difficulty for small Irish business in winning contracts from the State. Many complain that the government has set rigid rules, hiding behind the excuse of European regulations. Whereas, in other European countries, there is a much more conscious effort by governments to nurture the development of small business. Suggestions included offering smaller contracts to help small businesses tender, or not insisting on a large existing base of work as a pre-condition of a tender. In emerging areas like software development, there are rich opportunities for government to support emerging innovative businesses.

Regional Priorities:

Each region faces different constraints. Many regions perceive obstacles in their way in their effort to create internationally competitive strengths within their region. In Waterford, the lack of a university, in Limerick the threat to Shannon and its regional development authority, in Galway the untapped potential of renewable energy, in Athlone the failure to underpin the concept of a midlands gateway, in Cork the sleeping opportunity of the docklands. One thing is clear; the National Spatial Strategy has fallen far short of the ambition to build regions that would develop and maintain a strong competitive advantage.

Businesses did not come to the meetings expecting an open cheque book to sort their particular problem. However, they did demand a coherent strategy from government that would recognise the transformation that has to happen if business can once again provide good prospects of employment.

The meetings gave Fine Gael an opportunity to set out our strategy for both the short term and the medium term to rebuild the economic strength of Ireland, which up to a few short years ago was the envy of the world. Measures that would provide immediate relief include:

• A Tax Cut on Employment that would benefit 175,000 businesses by cutting wage costs by 2–4¼ per cent.
• A National Recovery Bank to get credit flowing.
• A 3-year freeze on all rates charges levied by government on business
• A new mandate for Regulators targeted on achieving international benchmarks for utility costs.
• Cut in the cost base of government of Government instead of chasing down the economy with new taxes.

A New Vision:

However, it was the vision of a longer-term transformation that really interested business people who in the midst of this gloom want to see a confident plan of reform which would make their effort and investment worthwhile for the future.

Simon Coveney presented our New Era Plan for creating a clear commercial mandate for the utility assets that the State already owns so that it could attract money from Pension Funds and a National Recovery Bond to invest in top-quality infrastructures that will be essential if Ireland is to be competitive in the long term. This ambition to invest €11,000m extra in leading-edge infrastructures was a concept that business found refreshing and inspiring. The willingness to sell old assets in order to lay down an infrastructural platform for the future was seen as economically sound and the ideal stimulus in an economy where the people to do it are available and unemployed.

Fine Gael’s plan to transform the public service was subjected to some probing questions.
• Would we really abandon the massive and powerful HSE and allow money follow the patient in a lean insurance-based model?
• Would we really enforce accountability with consequences that would see under-performing managers forced to shape up or ship out?
• Would we insist on the closure of agencies and the consolidation of expensive functions dotted around every government department into consolidated service delivery models, where private suppliers could also bid for some of the business?

These are big changes and the questions were appropriate and valuable. It underlines the importance that a new government must get a mandate for change to say ‘yes’ to these questions. It is an agenda of empowerment and reforms in the public service that can harness the ambition and talent of the many people in the public service, who are trapped in a system that is failing them.