Maeve Dineen: We must make process easier for firms to get off the ground
One of the more enjoyable parts of this job is judging business awards, and last week I was searching for the best and brightest at the Small Firms Association awards.
Talking to a good cross section of the business world's survival artists was like drinking from a well of cool, pure water. There was courage, inspiration and a fair amount of resentment towards the banks on display -- but I was struck once again by one thing: the almost universal respect the people have for Enterprise Ireland.
Enterprise Ireland is the Brian O'Driscoll of the business world -- it gets on with the job at hand, appears not to crave the world's adoration, but at the same time is hard-working and well-respected.
When the Irish Independent spoke to dozens of businesses about how they were weathering the recession, Enterprise Ireland was the name that kept cropping up. Metal factory owners, software engineers, food producers, small exporters -- everybody had a good word to say for the practical way in which Enterprise Ireland opens doors, provides mentors or finances unusual training courses.
The public sector regularly takes a bashing from the private sector, but there are a few outstanding organisations that should take a bow and Enterprise Ireland is one of them.
The IDA and Bord Bia are two more.
The same cannot be said, however, for the various LEADER programmes that dot the country or the County Enterprise Boards.
These organisations are rarely mentioned because their budgets are so small that they are rarely in a position to make a difference. They are also confusing because hardly anybody knows what their purpose is.
Complex and often competing business promotion agencies are a feature of modern democracies, but they can be very disheartening to those trying to set up a new company. It is hard enough to worry about the million and one things you need to do without entering the bureaucratic turf war of competing state organisations.
About a decade ago, Denmark was faced with the same problem and came up with a radical solution. Each province was given a single building that was home to all organisations responsible for handing out grants, offering advice or connecting people with mentors.
It did not matter whether your fledgling company was in food, computers or tourism. It did not matter whether you planned to hire 10 people or 100 people. There was a genuine one-stop shop and it worked.
It is time to do something similar here.
Dividing grants by county makes no sense at all. Having competing programmes such as LEADER and the County Enterprise Boards inside a single county makes even less sense. They should be merged and then placed under the control of Enterprise Ireland.
This is not as radical as it sounds. The entire budget for the County Enterprise Boards is just €15m this year while other agencies such as InterTrade Ireland have to make do with €6m. The amounts for Shannon Development, Intereg or the Tyndall Institute are even smaller.
The point is not that the people working for these institutions are doing a bad job or that they are wasting money. The point is that we must make it easy for the next generation of small- and medium-sized company founders to get going.
They don't want to talk to half-a-dozen organisations and fill in endless applications. They want quick decisions and to get up and running. They deserve nothing less.
Irish Independent
