The next government needs to introduce major tax reform if it wants to encourage the setting up of more companies, employers’ group Ibec has said.

It said claims by the main parties to support small business and start-ups now needed to be matched with firm manifesto commitments. While Ireland continued to excel at attracting foreign multinationals, this focus needed to be applied to supporting indigenous firms.

Indigenous firms account for only 43 per cent of GDP, 36 per cent of business investment, 25 per cent of corporation tax and about 15 per cent of our exports, despite making up 98 per cent of the enterprise base.

Ibec has called on the next government to equalise the personal tax treatment of the self-employed and owner managers with PAYE workers, to make changes to investment taxation so that investing in indigenous firms is more attractive, to introduce a simplified research and development tax credit to help smaller firms, and to reform the taxation of share options to help high-potential small firms attract talent.