Business confidence knocked by General Election results – Mazars

Confidence among Irish business leaders has fallen since the election, according to a survey by Mazars, the audit, accounting and advisory firm. Over 300 company directors and senior managers from a cross-section of business sectors responded to the survey which was undertaken on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

49% of respondents said their business confidence has decreased since the election, compared to just 2% who said it had increased. 49% said their business confidence remained the same post-election.

An expectation of greater economic instability was also evident among the business leaders (52%), in the event that Ireland had a minority Government supported by independents.

Adding to the lack of confidence is the overwhelming expectation among 83% of those surveyed that the next Government will not last its full term.

Mark Kennedy, managing partner, Mazars said; “It’s clear from this survey that the business community is less confident and the outcome of General Election 2016 has created significant uncertainty. Only 55% of the business leaders surveyed said they were confident about the prospects for the Irish economy over the life of the next Dáil and this, together with the very significant decrease in business confidence, if allowed to take hold, has the potential to impact on our economy. Investment decisions are driven by sentiment as well as business logic. There is a strong message here for our politicians – you need to act quickly and form a government to maintain the confidence of the entrepreneurs and business leaders who are driving job creation and business activity.”

“Interestingly, while the general consensus is that the Government’s economic message did not resonate with the Irish electorate, among the business leaders we surveyed, 70% said they would like to see Fine Gael hold the majority of cabinet positions in the next election, with only 21% expressing a preference for Fianna Fail. So, among business leaders there seems to be implicit approval for the job done by Fine Gael in managing the economy during their time in Government”, said Kennedy.

The top three business priorities for the next Government were identified by the Mazars survey as: supporting the development of Irish businesses (50%); long term investment in the economy (44%) and; maintaining the 12.5% corporation tax rate (42%).