Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the budget last week, a new loan scheme for businesses, the future growth loan scheme, was announced. Why would we announce and introduce such a scheme when the current one is clearly not working? The current one, worth €300 million and announced in budget 2018, has helped only a tiny handful of businesses. I acknowledge the Minister said there are applications outstanding and that there are more approvals in the pipeline but, according to what we have learned, the fund has assisted only ten SMEs, which availed of less than 1% of the total pot. Is the Minister going to address the shortcomings in the current scheme or just hope the new scheme, which is the old one rebranded or renamed, will take the bad look off the old one?

With the prospect of a hard Brexit now more likely, has the Government engaged with the European authorities to seek European funding for a contingency fund for businesses that could be accessed in the event of a hard Brexit?

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