A HIGHER proportion of Irish public procurement expenditure goes to overseas companies than is the case in most other European countries, Minister for Enterprise and Jobs Richard Bruton has said.
He said the Government was looking at its arrangements for public procurement to see if better opportunities could be developed for small business in Ireland.
Mr Bruton was speaking yesterday at the launch of research which found that an increase in spending of €4 per week by households on Guaranteed Irish goods and services could create more than 6,200 jobs in Ireland.
Analysis by Amárach Research of the impact of the Guaranteed Irish symbol on the economy showed that the average Irish household spends just under €16 a week on Guaranteed Irish products and services.
“If Irish households simply increased their spending on Guaranteed Irish products to €20 per week, that would create an extra 6,200 jobs based on the turnover per job for existing Guaranteed Irish members,” executive director of Guaranteed Irish Tom Rea said.
He said the estimated annual turnover of the 300 Guaranteed Irish member companies was €1.2 billion.
Between them they had 23,700 employees, equalling €52,000 turnover per employee.
“With the number of households in Ireland at 1.5 million we can estimate that the spend per household on Guaranteed Irish products per week is just under €16.
“A very modest increase to €20 a week would have a huge impact on the economy, creating over 6,200 jobs,” he said.
The Amárach Research on attitudes to Guaranteed Irish showed that the vast majority of Irish consumers (83 per cent) believed it was more important today to buy Irish goods and services than it was five years ago.
Asked at a press briefing yesterday whether the Government was doing enough through its public procurement programmes to support Irish industry, the Minister said it needed to look at pre-qualification rules for companies seeking State procurement contracts and to examine opportunities for small business
“Sometimes the qualification thresholds are set too high and they automatically exclude the smaller business.
“We want to see new opportunities developed, and we are working with the Department of Finance to open up those opportunities.”
Mr Bruton said Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister of State Brian Hayes were looking at such possible opportunities. Enterprise Ireland also had programmes which were being developed with procurers to try to open up opportunities for business. Mr Bruton said the notion of businesses having self-help organisations like Guaranteed Irish was very important. He said there were many things that Irish businesses could do for one another using their own experiences and using their own successful models.