Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Sub-heading 5 is on the information society and e-inclusion. It covers items such as the trading online voucher scheme which has €3 million allocated. It was disappointingly under-spent last year. I know that some members of this committee have been very active in going out to businesses and encouraging them to trade online and I encourage other members of the committee and Members of the Oireachtas to do likewise. We are providing a grant of up to €2,500, a 50-50 grant, for a business to establish a website and to put in the back office sales aspect needed to take payments online. Up to 30% of that grant aid is also available for online marketing. It gives businesses which are currently offline the opportunity to start trading online. It is for any business of up to ten employees. People can apply through their local enterprise office.

The other aspects of that vote are the national digital strategy including the benefit scheme, there is €1.6 million allocated for that, and the cyber security operational funding for which €1.95 million is allocated and which we expect will be ramped up over coming years as capacity in that area is increased. There is €0.4 million is allocated for the emergency call answering services and we are in the middle of a tender process for that now.