Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is always possible to make the case that more deprived parts of the country are entitled to exceptions from state aid rules, which is the way we approached the scheme initially. The availability of tax relief under the scheme was made subject to a ministerial commencement order in the 2013 Finance Act to allow for the granting of state aid approval for the scheme by the EU Commission. Since then, Department of Finance officials have been in discussion with officials of the European Commission seeking that approval.

Having considered the scheme in detail and at length, and under a number of state aid guidelines, officials have finally agreed that, subject to limits on the amounts of qualifying expenditure, the scheme can qualify under EU state aid de minimisguidelines. Accordingly, the scheme has been amended to impose a limit on the amount of expenditure that qualifies for tax relief.

I am pleased to announce that the scheme commenced from budget night. The guidelines considered were general block exemption regulations, regional aid guidelines, guidelines on state aid to airports and airlines and the de minimisguidelines. Eventually the Commission agreed that if we approached it through the de minimisroute, state aid considerations which were preventing its implementation would not arise and we could do it under that set of regulations.