The Trading Online Voucher Scheme is an initiative specifically designed to support small businesses to trade online. Funded by my Department and administered by Enterprise Ireland through the national network of 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs), the scheme offers financial assistance of up to €2,500, subject to matched funding, to help small businesses develop their online trading capability. This is coupled with training, mentoring and networking supports. Small businesses, with 10 or fewer employees, less than €2m in turnover, and that have little or no capacity to trade online, are eligible to apply.
The Scheme is demand-led and as such the take-up, level of financial assistance per business in terms of redeemed voucher costs, and thus total cost to the Exchequer will vary from year to year. As such it is difficult to accurately predict the total cost of the Scheme under a range of different financial assistance maxima. For information, in 2018, an average of €1,923 was paid in respect of the 921 businesses that benefitted from the vouchers.