Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Kelleher for tabling the question. The Department and its agencies are carrying out extensive work to prepare for all Brexit eventualities. Informed by detailed research, the Department has been putting in place a package of measures that will allow us to respond to the needs of businesses. This includes the recruitment of additional staff to support businesses to adapt to Brexit and the launch of additional supports for market diversification, innovation and competitiveness improvement. I also launched a Brexit working capital loan scheme in April 2018, which will provide affordable working capital financing to eligible businesses that are either currently impacted by Brexit or will be impacted in the future.

My officials are examining policy proposals for a new longer-term business investment loan scheme to support businesses to invest strategically for a post-Brexit environment. I am also developing proposals for a new business finance advisory hub service which would focus on business development.

In terms of helping firms to prepare for Brexit, Enterprise Ireland has launched the Brexit small and medium enterprise, SME, scorecard, an interactive online tool which can be used by all Irish companies to self-assess their exposure to Brexit. Enterprise Ireland is also offering what is known as a "Be Prepared Grant" of up to €5,000 to support clients to develop a Brexit action plan and strategic consultancy grants of up to €35,000. The agency has also rolled out a number of Brexit advisory clinics across the country. The Enterprise Ireland market discovery fund provides support to companies to assist them in researching the viability of exporting into new geographical markets, offering maximum grants of €150,000. The agile innovation fund supports product, service and process innovation to enhance the competitive advantage of Irish companies.

The local enterprise offices are organising workshops, seminars and training to assist companies to better understand the challenges of Brexit and have a range of supports to help clients. Similarly, InterTradeIreland is providing a Brexit start to plan readiness voucher scheme of up to €2,000, which enables companies to purchase specialist advice in areas such as customs, tax, tariff and non-tariff barriers, legal and labour mobility issues.

With regard to state aid considerations, in November 2017, following a meeting with the European Commissioner for Competition with responsibility for EU state aid policy, Ms Margrethe Verstager, we established a technical working group comprising representatives from the Directorate General for Competition and my Department, together with colleagues from Enterprise Ireland and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The objective of the group is to scope and design schemes to support enterprises impacted by Brexit in line with state aid rules.

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An outcome of the technical working group discussions has been the extension of the Irish rescue and restructuring scheme to include temporary restructuring aid for enterprises facing acute liquid needs. This provides a further €10 million of State support to those companies experiencing acute liquidity needs and is in addition to the original €10 million announced in November 2017 under the rescue and restructuring scheme. Under the scheme guidelines, the temporary restructuring element is in the form of loans repayable over a maximum period of 18 months. Restructuring aid under this scheme is in the form of direct grants or equity support.

The Department and agencies will continue to engage with the European Commission over the coming months as the potential impacts of Brexit become clearer.

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