CUTTING THE RED TAPE FOR THE SME

In a follow-up to its crusade against red tape launched last week, The Sunday Indo reports Enterprise minister Batt O’Keeffe is preparing a blitz against the excessive bureaucracy that is strangling small business.

The newspaper states that The Customs Consolidation Bill introduced in the Dail last Thursday is a “one stop shop enabling businesses to cut through vast mounds of paperwork that have hamstrung their activities amid recessionary conditions”.

Retail lobby group RGDATA and the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Isme) believe compliance could be costing small businesses up to 20% of their annual profits and are looking for reform.

O’Keeffe told the newspaper he is determined to cut the administrative burden by 25%.

“We are now in the process of measuring costs to businesses – so-called information obligations – so that we can draw up a plan to cut the financial and bureaucratic burden by a quarter,” O’Keeffe said. “In particular, we are looking at the red-tape burden in company law, employment law and health and safety law.”

A high-level government working group is currently looking at a number of options to reduce the cost of producing annual reports, in particular.