The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, TD on Thursday confirmed that she has commenced work within her Department on a project aimed at improving opportunities for small and medium enterprise (SME) access to public procurement business. Coughlan was speaking in Brussels at a meeting of the EU’s Competitiveness Council, where she claimed she had emphasised to colleagues, that EU procurement rules must also reflect the Union’s “think small first” approach to entrepreneurship. To coincide with the lecture in Brussels, there is at last an effort starting in Dublin to match lip service on policy towards encouraging start-ups and developing SMEs, with procurement by the biggest purchaser of goods and services in the State. Change comes at glacial speed in the sclerotic Irish political system and changes in rules for procurement are likely to help but endemic cronyism will not change while the overall governance system remains in an archaic timewarp.