Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Budget 2021 Support Measures for Enterprise: Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

Photo of Matt ShanahanMatt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I hope that, as the work of this committee progresses, we will get more opportunities to speak to the Department. We will not have time to get through very much this morning.

I will highlight a couple of issues. The Department's submission is welcome, as is the funding mentioned within, but there is an obvious bias towards larger businesses in Ireland and foreign direct investment. A simple case in point is the €5 million provided for microfinance. This is totally inadequate for the needs of small business. It is not an easy process for businesses to go through. The smaller businesses within the SME sector probably employ 600,000 to 700,000. These are largely owner-operated businesses. Although the supports the Department representatives are speaking about are welcome, they are very hard for these business people to access. As someone who has spent time around the enterprise sector, I know that all these strictures have to be looked at with regard to those running smaller businesses who are writing applications and trying to get through the funding process. Mom-and-pop businesses do not have the bandwidth to find people to do these applications. I know the local enterprise offices supply consultants but we are talking about trying to support businesses at the earliest stage.

Deputy Stanton already mentioned the early online voucher, which was very welcome. The Department will have seen the take-up. The funding has, however, stopped. That needs to be restored as a priority. People need to be able to access this scheme very simply and very easily. They also need to have their hands held. Going online is a strategic decision but once that decision is made, it must be followed up. Many businesses are left with a website but need ongoing support in generating business online.

I will also refer to the first and second restart grants. When the second grant was announced, the application dates for the first grant were moved forward. This meant that the deadline had passed for people who were going to apply for the first grant before their applications were considered. They were therefore not able to avail of these grants. It was rather devious on the part of the Department to make an announcement of two tranches of funding when it was obvious that many people were only going to able to avail of one. I hope we will not see this being done again. In the main, the facilitation of applications is really important from the point of local enterprise offices and businesses.

With regard to the Brexit readiness supports, I know these are mainly for exporting companies but they are also for companies which have to bring in supplies from outside of Ireland. We need to be aware of the difficulties they will face. We need to do much more in that regard. I will not ask the representatives any questions today. I would rather engage with them indirectly or at a point in the future to go through a large number of issues affecting the SME community which need to be addressed.

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