Difficulties facing small companies
Daly asked what the Minister was doing to help small firms facing closure. Bruton said small firms generally had a better survival rate than large ones, but cautioned that this closure stemmed from product-specific technological pressures.
Is the Minister concerned that an increasing number of small companies, similar to the one in question which employed about 40 people, are experiencing difficulties? What steps, if any, is the Minister taking to alleviate that situation for small companies, firms that do not hit the headlines like the Ranks closure or the Kingdom Tubes closure? The closure of small firms is equally important and as distressing for the work force.
Comment on this
Generally speaking, the survival rate of small firms has been slightly better than large firms. It would be unwise to generalise in this case because, as I have indicated, there were special technological considerations which related not to the size of the industry but to the type of product they were engaged in.