Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That brings me neatly on to the second issue which we have been raising for many years as well, that is, the problems faced by indigenous small and medium enterprises, SMEs, which is the over-burdensome procedure in regard to the credit. Many SMEs do not have access to the large accountancy firms. It is acknowledged that the process in Britain and in the North is much simpler and less risky for SMEs. The Department commissioned the OECD in 2019 to do a report on SMEs and entrepreneurship policy in Ireland. Part of that stated:

The cost of preparing, filing and defending a claim is too high. The criteria for making claims, recording and justifying claims and so on as laid down by Revenue are onerous for SMEs – the rules appear to have been designed with large established R&D intensive (e.g. pharmaceutical) companies in mind, where development processes are very detailed and structured. In contrast, the rules are not a good fit with, for example, new, agile software development companies, where processes are fluid and fast and documentation is less necessary.

Helpfully, it went on to make three proposals, namely, to simplify the approval procedure for research and development tax credits to facilitate the participation of SMEs in this initiative; to introduce a pre-approval procedure of research and development tax credits to help reduce uncertainty for SMEs - in Norway, for example, there is list of things that are likely to get approval; and to maintain the research and development tax credits while trying to increase their update by smaller enterprise by design change and awareness raising.

That was commissioned in 2019 from the OECD. What actions has the Department taken to achieve these objectives, specifically in regard to the simplification of the application process?