Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am satisfied that the Government is doing everything it can to help businesses prepare for Brexit. There have been numerous seminars and meetings, as well as an extensive advertising campaign, which I am sure the Deputy has heard on the radio, encouraging businesses to come forward to seek help from different agencies to prepare for Brexit. There has been a great take-up of these supports. Some 3,902 have used the EI Brexit scorecard to date. That means that 85% of EI client firms are now taking actions to prepare for Brexit. An additional 98 Brexit-related staff have been provided for IDA and EI, and an additional €8 million has been provided to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to allow for further increases in staff numbers, ensuring more staff are available to help people.

Regarding targeted supports, as part of the second call for the REDF, the Border region received an allocation of more than €10.6 million, which represented over one third of the total fund. Of that €10.6 million, I am pleased to inform the Deputy that more than €5 million was allocated for the construction of a new bio-economy research centre in Monaghan, which will be a game-changer for the future of the food industry in our region. Many targeted supports are available to help businesses prepare for Brexit. We all know the challenges it will bring, and we are certainly working with those businesses and doing everything we can to help them prepare.

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