120. Deputy Tony McCormack asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance his plans to implement the recommendations of the cost of business advisory forum report that come under the remit of his Department. [68706/26]

Before I start, I would like to offer my sympathies to the family, friends and work colleagues of Mihai Chinez and Denisa Chinez, who lost their lives so tragically in a workplace accident yesterday at Banagher Precast Concrete.

What are the Minister's plans to implement the recommendations from the cost of business advisory forum report that relate to his Department?

I thank the Deputy for his question and echo his words of sympathy to the families who were bereaved yesterday.

The Government is conscious of the challenges facing all businesses in the current economic climate. The programme for Government sets out a range of commitments to support small and medium enterprises, SMEs, and promote innovation, economic growth and entrepreneurship while maintaining competitiveness. This is an ongoing process.

The report of the cost of business advisory forum was published on 28 August. This is an industry-led report. It was facilitated by the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and established as one of the commitments under the programme for Government to examine the factors contributing to the cost of doing business in Ireland and identify practical measures to improve competitiveness. The forum brought together business representative bodies from retail and tourism to agriculture and the multinational sector, alongside Departments and State agencies. It was designed to facilitate a solution-focused dialogue between businesses, policymakers, regulators and experts who have insight into the factors driving the rising costs of business in Ireland. A number of meetings of the forum have taken place since its establishment in June 2025. These focused on insurance costs, regulation and planning, water services, legal costs, regulation and compliance and banking, payments and financial services. The report contains 63 recommendations aimed at reducing business costs, strengthening competitiveness and easing regulatory burdens. A number of these come within my Department’s remit.

My colleague the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment has contacted the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Harris, as well as other relevant Ministers to assess the feasibility, resource implications and potential impacts of individual recommendations and identify priorities for action. The Government is are committed to progressing practical measures that reduce the cost of doing business, enhance competitiveness and support a favourable operating environment for SMEs and enterprise. I am advised that the forum will reconvene in January 2027 to review progress made to date.

I welcome this report and the 63 recommendations it contains. I also welcome the commitments outlined by the Minister of State to identify practical measures that can reduce the cost of doing business. A number of these recommendations fall within the remit of the Department of Finance. They could make a real difference, particularly to small businesses. I ask the Minister of State to give us an indication of the priorities within his Department and what practical progress he would like to see made before the forum meets again in January.

I thank the Deputy and acknowledge his interest in and advocacy for SMEs. Indeed, as my party's spokesperson, he has been to the fore in raising the issues facing SMEs, not just in his own constituency but across Ireland. His own experience as an SME operator means that he can speak with real authority in terms of the challenges facing SMEs. It is important that we listen to people like him who are operating businesses and who understand the challenges.

One of the key issues that falls under my area of responsibility is ensuring reduced insurance costs for businesses. We did considerable work in the lifetime of the previous Government in terms of the action plan on insurance costs, publishing the personal injury guidelines, bringing down the cost of claims and enhancing the role of the Injuries Resolution Board and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in order to ensure that we create more competition in the insurance industry. Some 57% of SMEs are now paying less than €1,000 in annual insurance premia. A total of 90% of businesses are paying less than €5,000 in annual insurance premia.

I compliment the Minister of State and his Department on the work they have done on insurance. The cost of insurance was one of the main findings of the report. This is something that many businesses are under pressure with. I want to focus on one area that is particularly important for small businesses, which is access to credit. The report identifies limited competition in business banking and high borrowing costs as problems for small businesses. Access to affordable credit can decide whether businesses can buy equipment, take on another employee, invest in new technology or enter a new market. The forum recommends examining the case for a State SME bank. We already have State-backed structures that support business finance. Will the Minister of State ensure that this recommendation is properly assessed? More broadly, can we examine whether small businesses are actually getting enough affordable credit from the current system? We talk about helping Irish businesses to start, grow and become exporters, but access to finance is essential if we want that to happen.

I could not agree more, and that is something I advocated strongly for when I was a Minister of State in the Department of enterprise in the previous Government. Establishing a new State bank will be fully considered by my Department, including in the context of conducting any necessary further stakeholder consultation. I would like to draw the Deputy's attention to a large number of State supports that are currently in place to help SMEs to access credit. These include the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, Ireland's national promotional bank, which was established in 2014 to deliver financial supports that address failures in the Irish credit market while driving competition and innovation and ensuring the efficient use of available EU resources. The SBCI will have provided about €5 billion in lending to more than 66,000 SMEs to the end of 2026.

I would also point to recent changes to the credit union lending regulations by the Central Bank that are enabling credit unions to lend up to 15% of their assets to SMEs. That is an area in which I see real growth opportunities to support SMEs going forward.