Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses for attending, and well done to them because it seems like a good process overall. The feedback from companies on it is good. I am interested in getting a breakdown of the size of the 62 companies that have availed of SCARP to date. I presume it is mainly bigger companies if the amount involved is €200 million. What was the biggest challenge? Do the witnesses have data on why these companies had to access SCARP and what the biggest challenge was for them? Was it specifically their energy costs or a lack of customers, for example? That would be very useful information to have and I am interested to know whether that data is being gathered from the companies that are engaging with SCARP. Was there anything glaringly obvious like energy bills or some other issue that was the biggest challenge for them?

As we heard in the opening statement, prevention is better than cure. With that in mind, has there been engagement with the local enterprise offices, LEOs, to highlight the biggest issues and challenges for SMEs? LEOs have been given substantial funding to help small businesses with things like energy costs but I understand that the uptake of audits under the green for micro programme is very low. Is that something we need to look at? It would appear that nobody seems to know about those supports. I am always telling businesspeople about them and as soon as I do, they tell me they will apply. I would like to know a bit more about whether the Department is engaging with the people running the LEOs. We got lots of the money for the LEOs two years ago from the Minister but the uptake has been minimal. In County Clare, for example, the target for the year was 17 but only five micro for green audits were done. It is an ongoing concern of mine that the Government has made money available to the LEOs but it is not getting to the businesses. Ms O'Dea said earlier that there was a media campaign, a dedicated web page and a booklet. Did that media campaign include Instagram and other places where small businesses hang out all of the time, a lot more than on email or websites? Government websites are like interesting mazes. I would like to know more about the public relations, PR, side of things. I often see things in local newspapers and more traditional media but I do not see them in the arenas where small businesses operate, which include Instagram and other platforms like LinkedIn.

Finally, has the Department reflected on SCARP as a whole? It seems to have come from a very good place and to be based on very good research. Is there room for improvement? How does the Department view the process at the moment, bearing in mind what it has learned so far?