My Department and its agencies are working to provide extensive supports, schemes and advice to ensure that businesses are prepared for Brexit. These measures aim to assist businesses in identifying key risk areas and to facilitate the practical actions to be taken in response to the UK's exit from the EU.
The Brexit Loan Scheme provides affordable working capital to eligible businesses with up to 499 employees that are or will be impacted by Brexit and meet the scheme criteria. The €23 million exchequer funding (€14 million from my Department and €9 million from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine) has been leveraged to provide a fund of up to €300 million.
It has been designed to assist eligible Irish businesses in the short-term to deal with the challenges of Brexit, which include the pressures of increased market instability and currency volatility. The scheme is open to both State Agency clients and businesses that do not have any relationship with State Agencies. Sole traders may also apply.
The scheme was launched in March 2018 and, at close of business on 18 January, there have been 376 eligibility applications received, of which 337 eligibility applications have been approved and 65 loans progressed to sanction at bank level to a value of €14.9 million.
The number of eligibility applications received by SBCI at 18 January by company size is shown in the following table.
Company Size
|
Approved Eligibility Applications
|
Ineligible Eligibility Applications
|
Less than 10 employees
|
160
|
3
|
11 to 49 employees
|
132
|
1
|
50 to 249 employees
|
45
|
2
|
More than 250 employees
|
0
|
1
|
Total
|
337
|
7
|