Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 June 2026
295. Deputy John Paul O'Shea asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment whether he will review the membership of the Cost of Business Advisory Forum to ensure that the social enterprise sector, including Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland (SERI), is appropriately represented; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47772/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Cost of Business Advisory Forum was established in June 2025 as part of the current Programme for Government’s commitment to reduce business costs and alleviating regulatory burdens. The Forum is a tripartite dialogue between enterprise representative bodies from a range of sectors and senior representatives from Government departments, State agencies and Economic regulators.
In May 2025, preparatory work via public consultation was held seeking views from members of the public, Irish enterprise and other stakeholders on the necessary actions to improve Ireland’s competitiveness and productivity performance and address the Cost of doing business in Ireland.
As part of the process to establish the Forum, I sent letters to various enterprise groups and trade union seeking nominations for senior officials to participate at the Forum. I also sent a letter addressing each Government department and their relevant State agencies, for them to nominate senior officials, to attend Forum meetings. The first meeting of the Forum took place on the 11th June where numerous organisations representing Ireland’s enterprise sector were joined by officials from a variety of State agencies and Government departments.
To ensure the work of the Forum was reaching a wide range of stakeholders, the Secretariat provided updates to the Retail Forum, chaired by Minister Dillon and the Enterprise Form, chaired by myself, where members provided feedback to the Forum. While most of the members had joined the Forum since its inauguration, the Secretariat has positively responded to requests to join the Forum, throughout the course of the year.
The current members of the Forum are:
• Alliance for Insurance Reform.
• American Chamber of Commerce.
• Banking & Payments Federation Ireland.
• Brokers Ireland.
• Chambers Ireland.
• Chartered Accountants Ireland.
• Convenience Stores & Newsagents Association.
• Institute of Advertising Practitioners.
• Insurance Ireland.
• Irish Business & Employers Confederation.
• Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
• Irish Exporters Association.
• Irish Farmers Association.
• Irish Petrol Retailers Association.
• Irish Small & Medium Enterprises.
• Irish Tax Institute.
• Irish Tourism Industry Confederation.
• Restaurants Association Ireland.
• Retail Excellence Ireland.
• RGDATA.
• Retail Ireland.
• Retailers Against Smuggling.
• Small Firms Association.
• Law Society of Ireland.
The Forum’s consultative phase has now concluded. The Forum’s independent report and its recommendations are being finalised and will be presented to Government in upcoming weeks. These recommendations are considered to address issues that merit a changed approach, and those steps that can be taken to mitigate these issues to ensure businesses navigating today’s economic landscape remain a competitive, resilient and supportive environment for enterprise.
I would like to assure that the Government and my Department have been and still are committed to backing businesses and will ensure the actions aimed at supporting small businesses in the Programme for Government are implemented in an effective and timely manner.
