Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are aware of the Brexit loan scheme and the fact that there was a number of new staff hires within the agencies and that took longer than it should have taken. In addition, the generating of awareness and preparedness of the SME sector has been poor. InterTradeIreland tells us that 19 out of 20 SMEs do not have a plan to deal with Brexit. That really is a shocking statistic, in particular coming from a reputable organisation such as InterTradeIreland.

I wish to focus on the state aid rules. The Minister has outlined the rescue and restructuring scheme. She said that everything she is doing is within the existing state aid rules. What I have asked previously and what I ask again now is whether the Minister cannot lobby and petition DG Competition to change the state aid rules. That was previously done following the collapse in 2008 where the ceiling of €200,000 was raised to €500,000 and that was complemented by an enterprise stabilisation fund. Has the Minister engaged in any attempt to build support for that from her ministerial colleagues across Europe and will she specifically put changing state aid rules on the agenda rather than coming up with new schemes within the existing structure? The business representative organisations such as ISME, the SFA, IBEC and people who represent producers all say they want state aid rules to change to allow for a higher ceiling.

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