Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, for being here to take this matter. I congratulate the Minister and the Government on the initiative taken in this area already as part of the larger jobs initiative programme. It is important there is consistency with our nearest neighbours in this regard and I very much look forward to reviewing the scheme when it is completed. No doubt its eventual success will be positive for this country.

I have raised this matter with the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, on a couple of occasions already since the Dáil began. I noted the figures he provided to me on those seeking and receiving the business permission entry scheme in recent years. I believe we can do better and I think the Minister agrees. In that regard, I was encouraged to learn his officials are working on new immigration schemes in the area of entrepreneurship and investment.

I have raised this matter on the Adjournment because I wanted to offer some ideas of my own. We lost a generation of entrepreneurs in this country. Those who had the spirit and the talent went into property development. Others, for whatever reasons, were persuaded to go into the perceived safety of certain professions. We risk losing another generation overseas because of the economic crisis. We need to get that spirit of enterprise back into this country and I think we need help from abroad to do it.

We know Ireland is an attractive place to live. We know people want to come here and to work. We also know people want to come here to set up companies. This is very true in particular sectors, especially the high-tech one. We have some great start-up companies getting going in this area in this country. We have the big foreign direct investment players such as Google and Facebook, but we need to get that third pillar, the foreign start-up company. We need to look at ways of attracting foreign start-up companies to Ireland to add to the culture in that sector and in other sectors and to get that aspect of the economy growing again.

The UK has what is called an entrepreneur visa scheme, which it recently reviewed. We have the business permission scheme. I think that we can learn from our neighbours in this regard to rebrand the business scheme as an Irish entrepreneur's visa and make some changes that will make it easier for foreign persons to come to Ireland to start a company in whatever sector, to create investment and jobs, and also to create a new culture of enterprise that, unfortunately, has been missing in recent years.

I want to outline to the Minister a couple of suggestions as to how this scheme could be improved into an enterprise visa. I have more details if the Minister would like them, but I will briefly go through six points that I have here. The first relates to start-up funding. If a foreign person wants to come to Ireland to set up a company, he or she needs to have a minimum of €300,000 to do so. That is quite a lot of money, especially if one is working in the high-tech sector where today's start-up companies are quite lean and mean. We need to reduce this figure to €200,000, for example. It is still a lot, but €300,000 is too much. That small reduction could help in attracting people into this country to set up their own companies.

On business partners, most people setting up a company do not do so alone. If two persons were to come here from abroad to set up a company and needed permission to do so, they would have to make two separate applications, go through two separate vetting processes and have two separate amounts of funding. That is too much. We need to facilitate it in order that a company - the business or potential business itself - can apply as one. That would make much sense in that regard.

The INIS website is not clear enough. This is a simple change we can make. People need to find the information more quickly and easily. For example, people cannot find out details on the overall length of visa, the initial residence as well as any eventual terms of settlement or naturalisation. The lack of information is acting as a barrier to people.

There is also a bureaucratic burden in which an individual making an application must make it to two separate bodies. That does not make any sense. We need to centralise that. We could take an holistic approach to the applications for such enterprise visas.

There is also a support gap. Companies starting up here have good supports - the city enterprise boards, the county enterprise boards and Enterprise Ireland - but there is no support for a foreign person coming to Ireland to set up a business. We need to fill that gap.

The last issue is vetting. Currently, a person who wants to apply for the business permission scheme must have his or her business plan vetted by an accountancy firm. They want to know where one is taking out a rental agreement and the layout for one's offices. It is too much information. If a person has €300,000 or €200,000 in funding and is backed by a VC firm or accountancy firm, that should be enough.

These are six small changes that I propose to the Minister. I would be interested in hearing the Minister's thinking on reforming the business permission scheme into something akin to the UK enterprise scheme. If the Minister would like any further information from my office, I would be happy to give it.