Dr. Orlaigh Quinn:

We run national schemes. Clearly, there are fewer enterprises in some local authority areas than there are in others. Obviously, Cork is a key one and it has many enterprises. Our regional action plans, which we are working on at present, are key for the Department. They allow us to take a cross-agency approach at regional level. We rely heavily on colleagues in other Departments and in the industry sector who head up those plans to keep us in the loop on them.

Certainly, from our perspective, we keep this matter under review. There are other schemes. When we did the restart grant, it segued into the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, and the schemes run by Revenue, which are really important for businesses too. We have used the money we were allocated in our budget. If there is more money next year - again, that forms part of the overall review of schemes - we will look at the schemes. We will also do that in terms of our carryover as well.

From the perspective of the local authorities and their roll-out of the scheme, as already stated, we do review. We also have, really importantly, the local enterprise offices at local authority level. They are available to roll things out.

We would have to dig a little bit deeper into the point the Deputy is making. Is it simply that there are fewer businesses in the areas in question as opposed to it being an issue with the roll-out? Our feedback from the local authorities was that they were rolling it out.