A SURVEY of hundreds of Irish small and medium-sized businesses has found that many remain broadly dissatisfied with the performance of the government in improving business conditions.

The quarterly government satisfaction survey from ISME, the association of small and medium enterprises, shows a slight increase in satisfaction since the last survey, but that satisfaction rating stands at -57 when aggregated among various factors.

This is marginally improved on the -62 rating from three months ago, but remains close to its overall bottom.

Dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the banking crisis, and with the impact of business costs, helped keep the sentiment down.

The rating on the response to the banking collapse, at -74, “clearly demonstrates the frustration felt by business in the ongoing saga of the banks not playing their part in the economic recovery”, ISME said.

“The fact that the Government has had to introduce the Microfinance and Partial Guarantee indicates precisely the negative input of banks since being bailed out in September 2008,” the body explained.

The score on business costs stands at -72, illustrating anger with what ISME described as “continuing obfuscation and dithering on the public sector costs within Croke Park”.

The survey showed optimism about the government’s dealings with the Troika, however – the score for Troika relations stood at -23, an improvement of 11 points in the last three months.

Read: Retail sales up for the third month in a row

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