Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 April 2017

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Estimates for Public Services 2017
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (Revised)

4:00 pm

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

We are willing to look at any suggestions that helps to maximise the use of this scheme. Last year's target was to issue 3,000 vouchers by the end of 2016. We are at 2,930. Off the top of my head, the average spend on it is roughly €1,400. This has a huge impact. It increases sales by an average of one fifth, it increases employment by one third and two thirds of those businesses are now trading internationally. In my own constituency, in Cormicans, a business selling school books which operated entirely out of two shops, one in Roscommon and one in Athlone, started trading online. Now they have sold Irish school books into the Middle East.

There is potential for every business. Money is going into provincial towns from international sources that would never have gone into those towns in the first place. I actively encourage people to avail of it.

The administration involved in breaking it down on a step-by-step basis would be quite complicated, and that is the reason it has not been done to date. We have reviewed the operation of the scheme and will be announcing changes to it to assist people with it, but it has been a phenomenal success. We are trying to deal with some of the anomalies in it. That issue has not come to my attention to date, but we will look at it.

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