General Election candidate Paddy Harte.
POLITICS: General Election candidate Paddy Harte has said that local businesses in Donegal are the lifeblood of our communities.
Speaking at the launch of Enterprise Week in the offices of the Donegal Local Enterprise Office today, Paddy Harte told Donegal Daily, “The Government’s plan to make Ireland an international centre for start-ups through a co-ordinated range of measures including cutting Capital Gains Tax is especially important to Donegal.
“Small businesses in Donegal are the lifeblood of our communities and the Donegal LEO
network will continue to a play major role in supporting our entrepreneurs.”
Paddy added, “Two thirds of jobs created in our local economy are in companies less than five years old.
“Donegal has no shortage of talented and successful entrepreneurs but, compared to national and international competitors, we have an average level of new company start-ups.
“We need to incentivise people to take the leap to create their own job and jobs for other people and thats what I intend to promote and prioritise if elected to government.”
“Small Businesses are the real heroes of our economy – they are the
ones taking risks, creating businesses and jobs that we all benefit from.
“If elected, our plan will increase the numbers nationally, of start-ups by 25% by 2020 or 3,000 more start-ups per year.
“With assistance from local enterprise offices, we also want to increase the
survival rate of those start-ups by 25% a year, and improve the capacity of those survivors to grow to scale and expand in to larger scale exporters by 25%.”
“Under the Future Jobs Investment Fund we will provide additional capital funding and we will help support more High Potential Start-Ups through Enterprise Ireland and the LEO network.
“We will also continue to support improved access to finance for start-ups through the Credit Guarantee Scheme and the Micro Finance Fund.”
“We all know broadband is absolutely critical especially for rural start-ups in Donegal and, within the next Dáil term, Fine Gael guarantees the delivery of next-generation broadband to every household and business in the country.
“No town, village or parish will be left behind under the National Broadband Plan, which will ensure that 85% of premises in Ireland will have access to high speed
broadband by 2018, with 100% access by 2020.”
