Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, crowd-funding is the practice of funding a project or venue by raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. Crowd-funding campaigns are generally funded by the general public rather than by traditional investors.

Section 6.2 of the 2014 report of the entrepreneurship forum discusses crowd-funding and recommends that no action be taken by the Government until the industry establishes itself in Ireland and has had time to grow and develop. Action No. 217 of the Action Plan for Jobs 2014 commits to developing proposals to support the development of alternatives to bank financing within Ireland. My officials are working with stakeholders involved in SME finance on a number of non-bank financing initiatives, of which crowd-funding is one. Our policy position so far is that it is at a very early stage and I am not disposed to encourage it at this time by providing it with a tax break. However, it is an issue we will keep under review. We have tax breaks to encourage investment in other areas.

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