Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Dara Calleary has said that the latest World Bank Doing Business 2016 report reflects the failed enterprise policies of this government.
Ireland has continued to fall down the Word Bank’s rankings for the ease of doing business across 189 economies. We are now behind Estonia and Macedonia, dropping four places to 17th in 2016. To put into perspective, Ireland was ranked in the top 10 when Fianna Fáil was last in power.
Alarmingly, Ireland ranks behind many other similar scale OECD countries like New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and Singapore.
Deputy Calleary commented, “Despite what this Government likes to claim, we are clearly losing the competiveness battle. The rising costs that businesses in Ireland are facing are having a major impact on our ability to attract new companies and could jeopardise future job creation.
“In the last general election, Taoiseach Kenny said that by 2016 Ireland would be “
the best small country in the world in which to do business”
. This policy commitment has clearly failed and he and his Government must be held accountable for the continuing regression. Fine Gael and Labour have failed Irish businesses and enterprises, as was clearly demonstrated by the recent loss of the Web Summit to Lisbon.
“This government has excelled in creating a two tier economy. Piecemeal jobs announcements and photo ops have taken priority over sound enterprise policies and balanced regional development. These latest rankings should act as a wake-up call to the Government. It cannot continue to ignore threats to Irish jobs and wider competitiveness warnings. These present a clear and present danger to any long term recovery for all communities both economically and socially and cannot be pasted over with PR campaigns”.
