Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Nobody, and certainly not me, is disputing the good work done by the HSA. I just have an interest in it doing more. I have a number of questions but I do not want to take all of the time. I will ask a few and I can come back in if I have time.

I want to ask about the business support schemes to which the Minister alluded in his remarks. For the five schemes that are delivering grants and loans more than €3 billion was announced. Since the announcement some of the schemes have been delayed, some have not been commenced and some have very low levels of application. My figures are for last Friday and they show that only €24.3 million in support has been issued thus far under the Ukraine credit guarantee scheme and the other schemes. Will the Minister indicate whether there are issues, particularly with regard to the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, and the Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme? What is being done to make them more accessible and impactful?

This afternoon and in recent days I have had meetings with people on the other end of these schemes. The feedback to me is that there is an issue with regard to the paperwork. I was told by one person that in order to be able to access the scheme some people feel they need to hire an accountant. That is an additional expense they cannot afford. They are concerned about the schemes. The money is there and the announcement was made for a big figure, which I know always plays very well in announcements. I wonder whether the Minister has identified what the problems are. In his remarks the Minister alluded to the fact there is a problem. We can all see that. Has he identified what the problem is? Has he identified how it will be addressed? One would have thought, in particular arising out of the past three years that people trying to do business have had, that there would be a high level of take-up of the schemes but there has not been. What work is being done to identify the issues?