Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 July 2020
89. Deputy John Lahart asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if he will provide details of the package of liquidity and enterprise investment measures worth €55 million which will be put in place to support small and micro companies through additional resources for Microfinance Ireland and LEOs as announced in the July stimulus package; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19814/20]
View answerThis Government is providing a range of liquidity assistance to businesses, through guarantees to the banks for their on-lending and through MFI to assist microenterprises. MFI lending was paused on 6th July, as their funding position had become constrained. The Microenterprise Loan Fund Amendment Act 2020, which was signed by the President on 10th July, will allow MFI to immediately resume lending with this additional grant funding of up to €30 million.
Many businesses need assistance with restructuring their finances and will need greater access to term loans from their banks. A key issue for many businesses availing of the loan schemes is the first year of interest payments. Recognising this issue, there will be support for businesses in this regard.
This July Stimulus allocation will expand the MFI COVID-19 Loan Fund by an additional €30m. MFI is currently funded to provide 0% interest on loans for 6 months.
There is currently €66.5 million provided for the LEOs (this includes the €33 million provided for in the Revised REV 2020 estimates). I am providing an additional €10m to the LEOs in the July Stimulus bringing the capital allocation to the LEOs to €76.5million or a 130% increase on the allocation at the start of the year. The additional potential LEO beneficiaries could be in the order of 17,000 microenterprises across the LEO remit and including mentoring, training, grants and MFI throughputs.
As microenterprises move into the recovery phase and as the LEOs deal with the remaining applications on hands in respect of the trading on-line vouchers and business continuity vouchers, there will be a growing demand for more of the traditional core offerings from the LEOs, such as business expansion grants and measures to increase productivity and continuous development of on-line presence. No decision has been made on the allocation of funds to any individual LEO, but it will be used primarily for a combination of existing grant and soft support programmes and to address specific business needs for LEO core clients.
In addition, LEOs will begin rolling out the additional €20m in Trading Online Voucher assistance for micro enterprises using funding from the Department of Communications as part of the July Stimulus, helping up to an additional 8,000 businesses.
Full details on all COVID19 measures for business are available at:
https://dbei.gov.ie/en/What-We-Do/Supports-for-SMEs/COVID-19-supports/
