Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 July 2020
43. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the number and value of loans approved and issued to applicants through the Covid-19 working capital loan scheme since 23 March 2020. [14637/20]
View answerThe Covid-19 Working Capital Scheme is offered in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and is supported by the InnovFin SME Guarantee facility. The scheme is operated by the SBCI through participating finance providers.
It currently makes available a fund of up to €200 million to eligible businesses that have been negatively affected by impacts arising from the outbreak of Covid-19 to enable those businesses to innovate, change or adapt in response to the current business environment. Work is under way on a significant expansion to the scheme which will be brought to the market in the coming weeks.
The scheme is open to eligible SMEs and small mid-caps (businesses of up to 499 employees) negatively impacted by Covid-19. Loans under the scheme range from €25,000 to €1.5m and are for periods of up to three years. The maximum interest rate under the scheme is 4% and loans of up to €500,000 are available unsecured.
Since the 23 March 2020 and as of 6 July 2020 there have been 632 loans sanctioned under the Covid-19 Working Capital Scheme to a total value of €76.56m.
Information on the uptake of Covid-19 schemes is available from the Take-up of Covid-19 Supports page of my Department’s website, which is updated weekly.
