ISME calls on Government to publish stimulus package

Small firms’ lobby group ISME has called on the Government to “re-double” its efforts towards publishing a stimulus package for the SME sector to restore confidence and “get the country back to work”.

Addressing more than 500 delegates at the organisation’s annual lunch, in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel yesterday, ISME chairman John Ryan said: “We acknowledge that the FDI [foreign direct investment] sector is important to the economy. However, Government must also remember the job creation potential of the SME sector — from micro to small and medium enterprises; who have demonstrated, in the past, their capacity and willingness to expand. Any stimulus package to encourage the country back to balanced growth must have the SME sector at its centre and must have enterprise-centred initiatives to prime-pump the economy. In short, Government must think small first.”

Mr Ryan added, while the Government has been correctly concentrated on generating the required savings for the Exchequer, it needed to increase its efforts towards further cost-cutting through public sector reform; reducing the state’s indebtedness and producing an SME stimulus package.