SME need say on policy forum

SMALL firms must be granted direct involvement in the Government’s economic decision-making processes, ISME has demanded.

At its annual conference in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium yesterday, the lobby group for the small business sector welcomed initiatives already introduced by Minister of State for Small Business John Perry, including the establishment of the Small Business Advisory Group, but said that considerably more needs to be done.

To this end, ISME chairman John Ryan said a state bank is “badly needed” in order to address the credit “famine” for domestic enterprises. Mr Ryan said that SMEs could have a say in Government policymaking through a national representative forum that would independently advise, assist and evaluate Government economic programmes “to ensure compatibility with the needs of the economy as a whole”.

“If a genuine all-inclusive social partnership is to have any true purpose, it must include the SME sector; the drivers of economic growth,” he added.

Mr Ryan also used yesterday’s conference — attended by more than 350 delegates — to attack the nation’s banks over the continuing lack of credit flow and their “failure to respond to the needs of Irish businesses, with their continued inability to allow access to credit for SMEs”.

“It is illogical that in Ireland we have a banking sector that has been bailed out by the taxpayer but continues to fail to acknowledge and do business with the small business sector — one of the largest groups of tax- payers in the country.”