Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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-----for her questions. On the LEOs and the funding streams flowing from them, our national hub will be a significant benefit in trying to increase awareness. It will be launched next week on 10 July. That will pinpoint all available funding streams, mentorship and assistance the SME sector needs. It was stress-tested through the regional forum and business forum to ensure they think it is a good idea. That will help pinpoint issues around SMEs and assist businesses in finding the answer and helping them with mentorship and assistance.

On the numbers of participants, I have national figures for January to May 2024, including 25,000 training programmes. In terms of the green interventions, there have been 340 since January; we would expect more, but we will work to increase those. In the context of my role in the Department, I have to prioritise working hard for the SME sector. It is one of the areas I have hived off and I want to push that in the weeks ahead.

The digital portal we will launch at the end of the month will assist SMEs in their capabilities, in where they need to improve and in showing their resilience. That will be a significant assistance to them. The funding streams are there. That hopefully will help-----