TECHNOLOGY, ENERGY and communications are among the areas where a Fianna Fáil government would appoint outside experts to ministerial posts if elected to government, the party’s leader Micheál Martin told a meeting of the Irish technology community in Dublin yesterday.
The Departments of Enterprise and Foreign Affairs could “over time” see ministerial appointments from outside the Dáil or the Seanad, Mr Martin added. “We need to dramatically change how we do politics and how we form governments,” he said at a Dublin Web Summit briefing.
The proposal to allow outside appointments to the cabinet, part of Fianna Fáil’s election manifesto, would require a change to the Constitution. Mr Martin said Ireland was one of a small number of countries where participation in politics at cabinet level was restricted to a “narrow range” of professional politicians.
However, he said he believed technological expertise was more advanced in the private sector than the public sector. He was also “convinced” there was “a huge capacity” for bringing in outside experts in the energy and communications sectors given their strategic importance to the country.
Mr Martin told the industry audience that when he was minister for education in 1997, he had received a “bizarre” official letter from the Department of Finance arguing against spending money on technology in schools “because the personal computer might well be a passing fad”. He admitted government support for the ICT programme for schools had been “stop-start” over the past decade.
“I believe that Ireland can be a global innovation hub. This is not an empty phrase. It is achievable with the right policies,” he said, citing the development of Ireland as a host for green data centres and an international content-services base as areas where there are opportunities for job growth.
The Fianna Fáil leader also said he was in favour of appointing a chief technology officer in government. He noted there had been some “false starts” and “mistakes” made when launching department and agency websites in the past.
This, he said, indicated “a lack of capacity” in the public service as well as an “over-reliance” on external consultancies, “some of which were not good at all and gave very poor advice”.
Earlier, in a press conference on the party’s proposals for small business, Mr Martin outlined a plan for the creation of 30,000 jobs this year and a reduction in local authority rates for some small businesses. He said the jobs would be created by Enterprise Ireland and the IDA.
He said Ireland’s growth and confidence would return as exports continued to increase as we had the track record, talent, technology and tax regime, which could be built upon if the right policies were introduced.
Local authority rates were having a major impact on small businesses, particularly high-street shops, he said. Rate reductions, particularly for companies employing fewer than 20 people, would be financed by efficiency savings in local authorities.
The plan, which Mr Martin launched with party frontbench spokesman John McGuinness TD, envisages the appointment of a minister of state for small business, and the transformation of the old BES scheme into an employment and investment incentive when approval from the European Commission was secured.
The three-year corporation tax exemption for start-up companies beginning a new trade this year would be extended and amended so the relief would be linked to the amount of employers’ PRSI paid.
Enterprise agencies would work with small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to improve performance, productivity and competitiveness, assist them in developing exports in new and existing markets and help firms develop a greater online presence. SME accessibility to public sector procurement contracts would be optimised, and the potential for providing access to vacant or underutilised public property for start-ups would be investigated.
Mr Martin said the credit review office had been set up last year to ensure that banks lent money to firms, sole traders and farm enterprises. The office’s third quarterly report indicated there was some sign of an improvement in that area. But this could give no cause for complacency. “We are determined that our target of €12 billion for new or increased credit facilities to SMEs is reached and reached conclusively,” he added.
Mr Martin said small businesses directly supported 700,000 Irish jobs, and were bulwarks of the local economy in every town and city in the State.