LIMERICK’s socio-economic profile points to a high dependence on foreign direct investment (FDI), with more reliance than any other Irish city in this area, consultants have said.
Members of the Council’s Economic Development, Enterprise, Tourism, and Planning Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) last week received a presentation on the draft SME Action Plan at their monthly meeting.
Founder and principal consultant at Research & Dig: Urban Regeneration and Heritage Consultants, Liam Mannix, presented the proposed plan – an appraisal of the SME sector in Limerick city and county, with recommendations on growth over next five years.
According to Mr Mannix, Limerick’s high dependence on FDI can be both a strength and a weakness. It can be an issue, he told Council members, as it makes it harder to get other outside companies to set up business in Limerick.
“There are so many fantastic companies already here in Limerick with good pension plans and good routes forward for people’s careers. It’s a great advantage, but it’s also an issue for creating new SMEs,” he warned.
However, it wasn’t all bad news. Council members were also informed that, on the plus side, Limerick has the best “economic geography” in the country outside of Dublin.
“You’re the crossroads of the country, effectively, between Cork and Galway and Dublin and Cork and Waterford and Galway. You have the rail being developed. Even more, you have the ports, you have the airport, you have the universities, so you have incredibly strong economic geography – second only to Dublin,” he said.
Councillors were also told that Limerick’s business costs are cheaper than Dublin, and comparable to the capital in terms of corporate wellbeing.
“You also have a very well educated and well motivated workforce, which came through a lot during the stakeholder engagement. Every SME said, and even a couple of multinationals we talked to as well, that the workforce here are incredibly motivated, very well educated, solutions orientated – fantastic,” Mr Mannix enthused.
The housing problem
One issue, he pointed out, was the lack of housing.
“It’s not in the remit of this program, but obviously it came up a lot because you need your workers to be housed, and the city that wins on housing is probably going to win everything when it comes to investment on the island, access to finance and grant support,” he told he meeting.
“Access to finance and grant support is really important as regards SMEs growing, and that’s poor, unfortunately, not just in Limerick, but across the country. It’s a national issue down to risk aversion. That’s a cultural issue, again, because you’ve got so many fantastic FDIs here in Limerick. So, if you’re ambitious and you’re smart and you’re well educated, you can just go into one of the fantastic multinational companies you have here in in the city.”
Part of the draft plan spoke of minimising bureaucracy for SMEs. This is one area, it was suggested, that possible operations within the Council should be as “lean” as possible to make it easier for SMEs to deal with the local authority. While company benchmarking, the consultant explained, is also an important tool for the Council to help SMEs with certain aspects of their operations, including sales or marketing, to gauge their standing against competitors.
Fine Gael councillor Liam Galvin put the question to the Council executive if this proposed draft SME Action Plan was going to be just another “dust-collector”?
“To draft up this plan alone, what’s it after costing?” Cllr Galvin inquired.
The Council said it is confident there will be a take up on the rates scheme, but pointed out that retail is in a “very difficult space” right now. The local authority also pointed out that it has introduced the most ambitious rates scheme in the country but “people aren’t jumping at it”.
Chair of the SPC, Cllr Peter Doyle, took the view that offering free rates for 12 months is very attractive and will encourage people to set up businesses in the city.
“Hopefully, by the following Christmas, things will really start to roll with the proposals from the Government for over-shop development of residential units (which) will help Limerick City and our large towns,” Cllr Doyle suggested.
Sinn Féin councillor Sharon Benson was of the view that Limerick Council is not doing enough to support SMEs with procurement. She claimed there is fear within the local authority to use social clauses with the power of public procurement to assist SMEs.
‘Is there much buy in?’
Fine Gael councillor Dan McSweeney pointed out that there is only one elected member on the SME expert group. He said if the Council is to provide good governance, this cannot continue.
“There should be two or three members on it, and more than likely from this committee,” Cllr McSweeney opined.
Fianna Fáil councillor Bridie Collins wanted to know what the process is to make this plan statutory, otherwise, she said, “it’s just another document”.
“It’s just another document that we’ve probably wasted money on putting together. I suppose what I’m asking really, is there much buy in from the executive? It’s also very city centre focused,” Cllr Collins commented.
Council management, she was told, worked on the draft plan throughout. While consultant Liam Mannix did not accept that the plan was city focused.
“The definition of winning we had from a Council point of view was that every company in the county would have the same levels of support and we consciously tried to make sure that every action was applicable throughout the whole county,” he informed Cllr Collins.
The Council also stated that the SME Action Plan is not a statutory document but would be a “very useful” policy document. The local authority’s Head of Trade and Investment, Brendan Troy, said there had been wide-ranging consultation and deemed the plan a “fair” document that is reflective of the SME sector in Limerick.
“It’s not a statutory document but we would hope that it is something we can take forward, and we have moved forward with a couple of the steps already including the rates scheme and a philanthropic scheme which will provide funds towards social enterprises,” Mr Troy concluded.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme