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The Irish
SME Alliance

Welcome to the SME Alliance, the site where small business owners can register their support for our campaign to force Government to:

 

  • Recognise the contribution of small business to the health of the Irish economy. 

  • Understand that small business cannot compete with the enormous resources of foreign multinationals and the State itself. 

  • Engage with the owners of small business to ensure the continuity and prosperity of the sector which employs 60% of Irish workers. 

OUR APPROACH.

At the SME Alliance, we know that small businesses are the backbone of the Irish economy. 

We also know that politicians prefer to deal with big businesses opening big new facilities employing lots of people. 

But those big businesses are thinly spread, while small businesses support main street in every town and village in Ireland. 

Savejobs.ie is composed of many representatives from many sectors in the Irish economy, services, hospitality, leisure, manufacturing, construction, entertainment and so on. 

We want to work together for you, to effectively communicate the needs of small businesses to our political class, which is largely detached from the needs of small business. So whatever your business sector, join us today and help us make a difference! 

 

YOU are the most important part in this campaign. We will enable you to get your message across to your local Ministers, TDs, Senators and Councillors. 

 

The key to this is informing those politicians of the LOCAL IMPACT your business makes in their constituency. Until they understand this, they place NO VALUE in what you do in their locality. 

 

The Savejobs.ie campaign will require you to contact these politicians with the following information: 

 

  1. WHO your business is. 

  1. WHERE your business operates. 

  1. WHAT your business does. 

  1. HOW MANY PEOPLE your business employs. 

 

We will assist you in sending the key messages to your local politicians. 

 

You will find contact details of your local Oireachtas members here: 

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/ 

 

You will find contact details for your local councillors here: 

https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation-information/fd139-local-government-councils-and-councillors/ 

Business 
Challenges

  1. Multinationals in Ireland are HUGE. They make up only 0.2% of businesses, but they employ 920,000 people, 40% of workers in active enterprise. This gets them listened to. 

  2. Workers in large firms are paid €287.67 per week (38%) more than SME workers. 

  3. Public servants are paid €351.92 per week (46%) more than SME workers.  

  4. These workers together make up 48% of the national workforce, A far higher proportion than in other countries. 

  5. The EU wants minimum wages set at 50% of AVERAGE or 60% of MEDIAN wages, whichever is higher. 

  6. But small business cannot afford to be benchmarked against such high wages for almost half the Irish workforce. 

  7. The forum in which matters such as pay and collective bargaining is discussed in Ireland, LEEF, excludes representatives of small business, even though they employ 60% of the workforce. This is unfair and unsustainable. 

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