Firms ‘more satisfied’ with Coalitio

Businesses are increasingly satisfied with the Government’s performance, according to research by the Irish Small and Medium Enterprise lobby group.

Although there has been an overall improvement, Isme said it was a long way from a ringing endorsement of the Government.

Isme said the banking satisfaction level did not improve and there was only a marginal improvement in sentiment towards jobs.

The group’s chief executive, Mark Fielding, said that upwards only rent reviews and labour costs were still issues for businesses.

“SMEs are highly dissatisfied with the Government’s response to the issue of high business costs,” he said.

“Upwards only rent reviews, high labour costs and extortionate utilities continue to be a burden on an already strained sector.

“The banking crisis is also an area of great dissatisfaction as small and medium businesses continue to pay the price for the sins of bankers,” he said.

Overall the smaller the business, the higher the level of dissatisfaction with the Government in the second quarter of the year, Isme’s survey found.

It said that sole traders and micro businesses believe that Government had not introduced enough measures to help them.

In terms of support for the Government’s jobs initiative, overall there was a marginal improvement in approval, led by the hospitality sector.

However, the retail sector was overwhelmingly dissatisfied with efforts by the Government to improve employment.

Mr Fielding called on the Government to focus on more concrete initiatives to improve the business environment now that the EU presidency had ended.

Focusing on what the Government should do, Mr Fielding said: “More hard work and much less spin; a renewed effort by Government, now the EU presidency is over, to double their efforts on business costs, to bring them into line with our competitors and bank issues, to get finance flowing to the wealth generating sectors.”