Dear Member,   

In this week's e-zine, we advise on whether Good Friday is a public holiday or not.

We bring you details of the charity presentation as part of the SFA National Small Business Awards and of a SFA meeting with Frank O’Rourke TD to highlight the risks of the procurement bill.

Each week in the SFA e-zine, we will profile a different government support available to small businesses, in this edition we focus on the Local Enterprise Office, the ‘first stop shop’ for anyone with a business idea or micro-enterprises looking to expand. We also link to the results of the SME Credit Demand Survey.

Don't miss out on the answers to the top 10 HR/employment law questions from small businesses at tomorrow's Business Bytes and the next SFA webinar on 20 April on disciplinary and dismissal. We have announced some of the speaker line-up for the SFA Annual Conference, Better than Best, on 24 May in the RDS you can also still take advantage of the early bird 2 for 1 ticket offer. 

Learn key skills from expert trainers with industry experience through upcoming courses on Project Management and Performance Management and Appraisal Skills. We also provide a summary of recent press coverage. 

As always, we’d love to hear from you about any queries you may have, issues you wish to have raised with Government or other stakeholders and your ideas on how we can improve the business environment for us all. Please contact me directly at tel: 01 605 1602 or e-mail: patricia.callan@sfa.ie or tweet: @SFA_Irl or visit: www.sfa.ie.

Kind Regards, 

Patricia Callan 

SFA Director