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WE’VE SEEN THE slogans and heard it from the Taoiseach himself - Ireland is the best small country in the world in which to do business, right?
But does that only apply to the big end of town and what costs are dragging down the owner-operators who keep the economy ticking over?
This month as part of TheJournal.ie’s coverage of the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) sector, we are looking at important money matters for these businesses – which together put nearly 70% of private-sector workers in a job and account for about half the nation’s commercial output.
Here’s a handy graph to start with as we look at where most of that money goes:
This year’s Forfás report into the cost of doing business in Ireland showed that across all business sizes and sectors, labour expenses were easily the number-one drain on the company purse.
When “location-insensitive costs”, or materials and equipment which had prices set by the global market, are taken out of the equation, businesses on average spent between 54% and 87% of their total costs on staff depending on the industry.
Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) chief executive Mark Fielding said wages were easily the number-one cost for businesses and the government could cut taxes to lift workers take-home pay and reduce the pressure on SMEs from wage rises.
There is much too much emphasis on foreign direct investment in Ireland – I’m not against it, but there needs to be the same amount of interest show to the SME sector now as there is to the multinational sector,” he said.
Despite workers taking a big hit during the recession, the figures show Irish workers’ average hourly costs remain above the eurozone average – €29 per hour last year, compared to €28.20 across the region and €20.90 in the UK.
The average worker was still earning less last year than they did in 2007, although there have been marked differences between industries.
Here’s a comparison of how the average cost for workers in construction, whose pay packets have shrunk the most since 2009, have fared compared to those for staff in IT and communications, who have had the biggest increases:
Property costs are the next-biggest expenses for businesses in most industries, except for manufacturing where transport is the big drain on the company purse.
And when it comes to bricks and mortar, Ireland scores surprisingly low on a global scale – especially when compared to property prices from the boom era, when Ireland ranked among the most expensive places in the world to secure real estate.
Rents for both prime office and retail spaces came in below the eurozone averages last year, although analysts have noted prices ramping up again - as much as 28% in the capital over 12 months as companies starting to be pushed to the city fringes to cut costs.
Transport fuel and utility costs both rate as expensive by European standards with Ireland having the third-highest retail electricity prices for SMEs out of the major EU countries.
Chambers Ireland policy director Mark O’Mahoney, whose organisation this week headed to Brussels for a EU-wide business conference, said Irish and other European SMEs were feeling the pinch from the higher costs of regulation in the region when compared to many of their Asian and North American competitors.
“I think Ireland is potentially a very competitive place to do business – it is a good example of how a country can turn itself around and we are looking into 2015 pretty positively,” he said.
“But Ireland is still a high-cost economy so it is something we need to be mindful of if we want to keep up. We are a small country and we are competing with the rest of Europe and the world these days.”
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Wonderful so no extra gardai to patrol the street’s or cars to help response times for actual crimes
Instead buying something to clean up a large mess created by the mob in the dail, NGO’s and fat cat developers who tried to make human trafficking for a profit a legal business and stirred up the race hating nutters…..
The irony is we probably won’t have enough gardai to man these yokes like we don’t have enough manpower for all the new weapons they wanna buy for the defence forces and our little attempt to play NATO call of duty
@Tom Newell: If far-right racists stopped burning down buildings and murdering tourists we wouldn’t need them.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: the far right didn’t cause garda response times and answer 999 calls to go to crap the past few years……
@Jacintha Dumbrell: look to why riots are happening and fix that instead. A watercannon doesn’t fix problems.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: Murdering tourists? Of the top of my head I can think of the recent murder by two Romanians of a Canadian tourist and the one in West Cork allegedly by an English migrant years ago. Are these the far right racists you’re talking about?
@Tom Newell: good job ,put dye in the water so they can arrest them later ,about time the guards had a decent bit of equipment .
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: yes it does
@Tom Newell:
Alot going on there son
Maybe limit your exposure on the Internet to Marxist st1t.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: Wasn’t Irish who killed the yank
@sean weir: eh , wrong.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: NPC – non player character pre programmed response
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: no, but it gives the dole-suckers and assorted farage puppets a good wash.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: bury your head in the sand even more.
@Jacintha Dumbrell:
@Jacintha Dumbrell: Bet you lead a comfortable and cosseted life?
@Jacintha Dumbrell: look at the problem, not the solution.!
This is happening because marginalised people have been let down by fgff. easy prey for far right agenda. It won’t be the big guns getting water cannon but the nieve people who follow them. This lies with minister for justice, and drew Harris. Blame the actual people who are responsible. I also thought an all black security at the site might have been a bit of a mistake, many of them older was very unfair on them, put a load of eastern Europeans on it, and trouble wouldn’t have escalated. They would be afraid to tackle a few of them.
How about listening to communities who don’t want more people in their area. Disgraceful government
@common sense: I don’t want you in my area, pack your bags.
@common sense: If it’s not immigration then it will be something else. A very small minority use social issues to behave like thugs.
@common sense: how about they get a job
@mark sheehan: They are thugs Mark. Vermin. Gurriers. No respect for law, their neighbours. Nothing. They’ve always been around. Let them have it..
@common sense: listening? The two main Govt parties got the most votes in the Local Elections in June, and all the racist candidates got less than 1%.
Just spent a few days in Valencia, Spain. I would like to see Gardai and County Council officials be brought out there to see how things are done. The streets are clean, no graffiti, no valdalism, no menacing drug addicts and a general feeling of safeness and wellbeing. Fountains and sculptures treated with the respect they deserve. And, they manage this without a strong visible Police presence!!! Comparing Valencia to any of our major cities just shoes up how badly we manage our streets!!
@chris gaffney: by God, they must have brilliant, ev water cannons that shoot recycled rain water, when available.
@Oh Mammy: Liquid manure ;-)
@chris gaffney: yes well Spanish peop is e have pride where they live , dont litter the streets, drink very little beer and can enjoy themselves without getting drunk or doing drugs
@chris gaffney: The lack of a lot of the things you identified in Valencia and elsewhere in Spain, for that matter, stem from cultural differences more than anything else.
Acting like a scümb*g in Spain is socially unacceptable, but in many parts of Ireland, especially in Dublin, it is not only viewed as socially acceptable, it is also embraced as a group identity.
The vast majority of the people engaging in the aggressive and often violent anti-immigrant protests in Ireland that prompted this purchase of water cannons, not only don’t have jobs to go to, they wouldn’t work if their lives depended on it.
Wonder how much these will cost the taxpayers?
@Michale Kane: OPW Rumours have it. Each vehicle is apparently costing the taxpayer between 336k and 1.4 million. Personally, I don’t know where they are getting those figures from.
@Michale Kane: They cost half a million a piece.
@Pat Barry: Think it’s for the pair actually, Boris Johnson got better value when he bought 3 from the German Police for £300,000.
@Michale Kane: A lot less than replacing buses, trams and everything they louts burn or destroy. What’s your opinion?
If this shower of piigs in government would do the right thing by the people who elected them there would be no need for the stasi..sorry I meant gardai to need water cannons.
@Gerry Lamont: shut up Gerry and go get your umbrella,I think you may need it
@sean weir: I bring my brolly every time I visit your sister
@Freda Peeple: I thought you liked golden showers?
Gardaí need to purchase more gardaí. They won’t be allowed use them cannons in case they hurt some young hooligan, like they’re not allowed intercept bike thieves. The powers that be actively ignoring crime.
@James McCarthy: The ‘athletes’ in the photo look like the could use a clean in fairness
Long overdue, as the thugs and racists needed to be cleaned off our streets.
@Pat Hazzard: as well as the tents in the city center. A water canon would do very well against the illegals. Maybe they won’t stay?
@Pat Hazzard: what’s a racist Pat? Your definition please. Take your time.
@Oh Mammy: anyone who doesn’t agree with him
@Oh Mammy: Well, if you have to ask…….!
@Shane Kinsella (Kinsey): that was my thought. I should probably get a wet suit…….
@chris gaffney: why not give me your definition?
@Pat Hazzard: they need to add indelible dye to the water to help identify the agitators when they try to slip away, having incited the gullible mob and the assorted dole-suckers to cause damage.
@Oh Mammy: What’s your definition of a racist then?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: I asked first. When I get an answer I will give mine
@Pat Hazzard: oh … you mean ‘the racists’ you’ve been preprogrammed to talk about
Absolutely fantastic news hopefully they use them on the dole merchant anti migration protestors.
Porsche or ferrari brand ? Should be match bike shelter High design.
Real cannons would be better.
Not before time. Need to purchase new judges as well. Too much kid gloves with these thugs.
@John Flanagan: We just need Garda to allowed Police like in other countries . Too much red tape . Example a person is driving a scrambler bike around a housing estate at speed with no helmet and kids present the Garda cannot touch him . In other countries the police would ram him off the bike , the consequences of that is the Garda would face charges . It’s madness .
@Alan d: yea Alan and when garda bring them to court. They are slapped on the hand and told don’t do it again.
@John Flanagan: law needs changing, if 13 year old is caught in a stolen car, they should be tried in adult court. If convicted before 18, it should carry over to adulthood. They need to learn their crimes will be punished.
What’s the budget? 150 k, 336k,1.4milliion each. It will a be a rushed purchase because they’ll need them for Halloween
@P. V. Aglue: 150k for transit van with the mesh over the front window.
@P. V. Aglue: don’t think the plan is to put out bonfires.
Fill them full of slurry.
@Aidan Boland: i like that idea
@Oh Mammy: Love it. The headline should read “Gardaí purchase 2 new slurry tanks”
1 for Coolock the other down in Tipp! That should clean them up!
Slipping further & further into an Authoritarian State under this Govt. Drew Harris & Helen Mc Entee lost control of Law & Order, instead of having active policing on the ground, it’s all about hammering people into submission with batons & water cannons. I wonder how many people out protesting peacefully will be hit & injured by these water cannons. Mc Entee is intent on destroying free speech & the right to protest, meanwhile Law & Order under her watch has broken down in every city, town & village across the country.
So they are in the process of purchasing 2 water canon vehicles from an overseas Police force for around €500,000 for the pair…. cheap at the price when you compare it to bike shelters
@MIchael Costello:
Now if only Shin Fein bring that money they laundered to the UK back to Ireland pay there tax on it just like the little people do, and that will cover the cost of the Gardas Mobile power washers
Two little two late.
Our full garda team should be armed full stop ✋️
@Alan Moloney: as far as we know there 2nd hand not new
@Alan Moloney: Why would you want to give these thugs any firearms?
Look at the murders by US cops. Let’s not degenerate to that level.
Interestingly these aren’t approved for use in the UK outside of NI.
@Pat Barry: yes they are, were used during the miners strike,and in the Croydon roots
@sean weir: That may be the case but they’re certainly banned there now and have been for years.
Why dont all the smart people on here who have all the answers run in the next general election, of course that actually means doing something
@Peter Byrne:the old “why don’t you run” generic blah blah comment… how far will you get in politics if you upset the gravy train? Not far is your answer
Didn’t they buy 2 after the ‘Reclaim the streets’ protest/riot? They sold them due to lack use then. Or did I just imagine all that?
@Ronan Mc: they borrowed those from the PSNI. They haven’t as much use for them now that the IRA are doing less wrecking for unity.
@John Mulligan: Nice bit of “but the ra”-ing but it’s actually loyalists who carry out most of the rioting these days.
It’s not the Gardai anymore, they’re PSNI shoe in’s, the RIC is back and paddy is again the target. Fudge all you west brits cheering this on from the sidelines, same people whos ancestors sat by in their proddy towns while the paddy starved to death during the famine. You don’t even know who you truly are do ya’s?
They will never be used absolute waste of money again
They’re just two power washers for the tidy towns competition, gotta keep the place looking squeaky clean
Probably in storage 95% of the time. I’m not sure if they can be used for anything else. They could park them in the bike shed or the security hut, I suppose, to save storage costs. No extra garda or nurses, doctors, etc, but we will have these essentials.
Yet again the uncivilised people cannot behave themselves and cost the taxpayers money.
@Tommy: In ten years time you will wish you were one of “them” people. Mark my words
@Freda Peeple: Very True, I personally blame the Greedy Greens and Helen McEntee for their incompetence at leaving the gate open and flooding the country with undocumented males.
My question is Where’s all their wives and children?
@Tommy: on their way as soon as the males are cleared. Then the parents and any other relative.
About time.
The Minister for Justice said on RTE Radio last week that they had been purchased and would be delivered early next year. So what’s the truth?
@karen delaney: she didn’t she said they had gone out to tender and so would be delivered next year.
As an 80s kid who grew up in communist Poland, I feel like I’m travelling back in time. Slowly but surely.
A couple of billion euros should do it.
More tools for the new Tans. They have lost much of the public over their thuggish behaviour recently.
@donal finn: not really. Only the thugs who disrespect our beloved flag and share space with some thugs from the north carrying the Union Jack.
While everyone gets excited another deflection, for drew Harris, and helen mc entee,
Doing his dirty work, the riot would have even started, if he hadn’t taken guards off the site, leaving workers with no protection.
Where are the guards on the street doing half-hour checks that lasted about a week.
Drew needs to go. The guards that were there stood idly by watching,or moving a few barriers instead of crowd control.
About the only shower these lazy doleheads would ever see
Fill them with poo-pee water and make sure the guys carrying our beloved flag, and their mates with the Union Jack beside them, are first to have a wash.
About time. I hope the Government have the legislation in place to use it
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