200 new businesses every working day
Figures published today show that 4,000 businesses were formed last month. This is despite the government’s real lack of support for smaller businesses (see previous blogs for details including our letter to An Taoiseach that seemed to really strike a chord), the Irish public is voting with its own hard earned money to form companies and get into business.*
You should be selfish
No matter what industry any of these new businesses are in, we encourage them to join their trade organisation, the IPU, CSNA, RJI etc. But we also invite you all, all 4,000 of you this month, and as many others as would like, to join ISME for purely selfish reasons, as Government action or inaction has a direct bearing on the future of your businesses.
Doers not moaners
ISME is a national organisation that is focussed on the issues affecting small and medium enterprises only. We lobby hard. We lobby constantly. We lobby on your behalf. Our members tell us directly (there isn’t a flatter, more open, membership organisation) what issues are affecting them. We discuss these, find solutions (our members are entrepreneurs, so are doers not moaners) and then deliver these solutions to the transient government (politicians) and the real government (the civil service).
ISME scores
Our lobbying works. Most recently our campaign to have the inequities of the tax on entrepreneurs repealed has started to bear fruit with some changes made in Budget 2016 with a promise of more to follow in subsequent budgets. We’re not an organisation looking for handouts. As concerned citizens we do try to find ways of making our small economy more competitive. Another current campaign to keep wage rates realistic is based on our knowledge of what smaller businesses can afford, not on some Scrooge like mentality.
Always spending money they don’t have
The government’s view on wages is informed by senior civil servants who are direct beneficiaries of any wage rise they can convince the government to give the public service (see our Parallel Universe blog), even though the State is still borrowing to pay its way. The large multinationals, who pay through the nose to avoid taxes that might pay those public servants, don’t give two hoots about wage rates as they are, in the main, hugely profitable. And the unions have always been more concerned about keeping their ‘in-work’ membership happy than on creating the conditions that might see more citizens back to work, by keeping wages competitive. So now, why would you not join ISME today ?
*(There is a PhD dissertation to be done on how the Irish nation has transformed from being heavily reliant on the State for the ‘safe’ jobs to a nation wanting the freedom to express itself through enterprise. This is something that has occurred over the last forty years, and not just since the Great Crash & Recovery)
