Ms Siobhán Finn:

The fundamental design of the smart regions enterprise innovation scheme is wrong. It is not fit for purpose. It does not meet the needs of the centres and hubs sitting in communities in regions around the country. The design took a top-down approach and did not understand the demands of the sector on a day-to-day basis and the critical challenges facing it. It is interesting to hear what ISME had to say today. There is a lot of repetition. A lot of what I heard is exactly what we are experiencing in the sector. Our biggest challenge is operational costs. There are two key priorities within the operational costs of enterprise centres and hubs. They are salaries and energy. We faced significant challenges a few years ago when it came to the particular scheme that ran at the time to support businesses during the winter of 2023-24. We could not apply for it because the scheme was designed by individuals who assumed all businesses have an MPRN. They do not. We could have a centre with 20 or 25 businesses that has one MPRN so those businesses could not avail of it.