Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 July 2020
107. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the additional funding, not already committed, allocated in the July stimulus to each local enterprise office; the specific purpose of the funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20054/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe July Stimulus package which was announced by the Government last week allocated an additional €450m to my Department. The details of which are as follows:
- €300m ReStart Grant
- €2bn Credit Guarantee Scheme
- €55m for Micro and Small Business Loan and Grant assistance through MicroFinance Ireland (MFI) and LEOs
- €10m for the €500m Future Growth Loan Scheme
- €10m for Enterprise Ireland Seed and Venture Capital
- €20m for Brexit Business Preparedness
- Future Jobs related investments of €25m in Lifesciences and combating COVID-19
- €10m for Carbon Reduction
- €4.0m towards a new €5.5m Online Retail Scheme
- Additional €10m marketing budget for IDA Ireland
This 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.
There is currently €66.5 million provided for the LEOs, which includes the €33 million provided for in the Revised REV 2020 estimates. An additional €10m is being provided to the LEOs in the July Stimulus bringing the capital allocation to the LEOs to €76.5million or a 130% increase on the figure at the start of the year. It is estimated that 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. A further €20m is being provided by the Minister for Communications as part of the July Stimulus to the LEOs for the expansion of the Trading OnLine Voucher Scheme.
As microenterprises move into the recovery phase and as the LEOs deal with the remaining applications on hand 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/
