Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much agree with the Deputy that smal retaill businesses must trade online because of the transformation that is under way. She has rightly pointed to the figures for the numbers of people who trade online, particularly young people who use smartphones and other services to buy online many of their goods. It is important that we look after the indigenous sector. Let us look at a company such as McElhinneys in the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's county of Donegal. It now does 12% or 13% of its business online. I was there a few years ago. Many of the people who shop online with it still live locally, not in other counties. We need to be conscious of this. People are beginning to adapt to the technological changes. To be fair to the Minister, Deputy Heather Humphreys, she has prioritised her work at the retail consultation forum and launched the new online retail scheme. We regard it as being so important that we doubled the funding for the scheme to €1.25 million. Companies with more than 20 employees were mentioned. I hope the trading online voucher scheme will be of help to those enterprises with a smaller number of employees.

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