Mr. Padraic McElwee:

I thank the Senator for his kind words of support, particularly for the team in Galway, with whom I am sure he is very familiar. The trading online voucher scheme has been a phenomenal success. The Senator touched on one key objective that we will have. Having helped over 17,000 businesses establish an online presence, we must now work with those businesses to make sure they maximise that opportunity. There is, therefore, a significant amount of upskilling needed. It is one thing to go online. The next challenge is to make that effective.

On our targets, we are seeing a reduced demand because we helped a significant number of businesses. The Department has been hugely supportive of this scheme. We have recently conducted a survey analysis, the results of which will be published shortly. The analysis has been largely positive. The scheme has been effective, delivered real growth into those businesses and created employment. I am confident that we will have a sufficient budget to meet demand.

On promoting the scheme, we do a significant amount of activity through local media. However, we find that our best outreach is through social media. That is where we get the best traction. All local enterprise offices are actively engaged. We simply cannot meet the demand on our digital marketing programmes around upskilling. The demand is there and we are challenged to meet it, but we will meet it.