Minister Bruton announces new membership of National Competitiveness Council to help reduce business costs and create jobs
New Council to play key role in driving Government’s Action Plan for Jobs

The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD today (Wednesday) announced the new membership of the National Competitiveness Council ahead of its first meeting with the Minister in Government Buildings later today.
The Council has been reconfigured to help drive the development and implementation of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs. In particular, the Council will be mandated to develop actions on competitiveness for implementation through the Action Plan structure.

The meeting will coincide with a meeting held by the Taoiseach and Minister Bruton with the six Industry Partners, leading private sector figures appointed recently to the NCC to help drive reforms to support increased job-creation.

Minister Bruton said:

"A central part of the Government's plan for jobs and growth is ensuring that we drive improvements in our competitiveness. Recent evidence shows that while we have made major gains in this area in recent years, much of that risks being only temporary. If we are to create the jobs we need, we must focus relentlessly on continuing to reduce business costs and improve our competitiveness.

"The National Competitiveness Council has a key role to play in driving these changes. The reforms announced today will bring new thinking and energy to this crucial agenda. They will also copper-fasten the Council’s role in developing and implementing Government policy in this area through the Action Plan for Jobs.

"I extend my thanks to all involved, and look forward to working together to drive improvements in Ireland’s enterprise environment and help create the jobs we need".

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Forfás will continue to provide the research and analytical support to the National Competitiveness Council, whose new membership will be as follows:

Members:

Chair: Dr Don Thornhill

Martin Shanahan, CE, Forfás

Liam Casey, PCH

Prof. Peter Clinch, VP Innovation in UCD

Shay Cody, ICTU

Clare Dunne, DJEI

Isolde Goggin - Chairperson, Competition Authority

John Herlihy, Google

Danny McCoy, IBEC

Sean Murphy, Chambers Ireland

Sean O'Driscoll, Glen Dimplex

Louise Phelan, PayPal

Heather Reynolds, Eishtech

Dave Shanahan, AbbVie

Paul Sweeney, ICTU

The new NCC will continue to produce work on policy documents like the annual Ireland's Competitiveness Scorecard but in a change to its mandate it will now be asked to input to the "Building Competitive Advantage" section of each subsequent Action Plan for Jobs Report.  With this formal link established it is intended that several positive policy spin-offs will evolve: 

• The Industry Partners who are bringing their experience and expertise to bear on rolling out Government enterprise policy will now be able to bring their professional experience AND the experience of policy implementation to the NCC so that the NCC's outputs will reflect that accumulated knowledge and insight; 
• The NCC’s contribution to the Building Competitive Advantage section of each APJ will drive an action oriented set of time bound recommendations that will be monitored and reviewed each quarter with the clear intent of implementation; 
• The profile of the IPs and the other new members will serve to promote and prioritise the competitiveness agenda and actions to help drive improvements in business costs.

ENDS