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

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The DTIF is a €500 million fund established under Project Ireland 2040 and forms a key part in the delivery of the pillar 1 goal of future jobs Ireland to embrace innovation and technological change.

In December 2018, a total of 27 collaborative projects were approved for funding under the first call of the fund. The DTIF will result in investment in the research, development and deployment of disruptive technologies and applications on a commercial basis. The successful projects come from the health, food, ICT and manufacturing sectors in Ireland. There are 104 organisations involved in the 27 projects that will receive funding. These include large enterprises, SMEs, colleges and public research bodies. Several colleges and public research bodies are involved in multiple projects.

A total of 18 successful projects involve partners based outside Dublin. They are located in Limerick, Cork, Galway, Kildare, Monaghan, Waterford, Louth and Tipperary. As indicated in December 2018, the 27 projects involve a request for DTIF funding of approximately €75 million, of which €20 million is due to be drawn down during 2019.

The DTIF is being administered by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of my Department. Contracts are now being finalised by Enterprise Ireland in respect of each of the 27 projects and grant drawdown will commence shortly. With this fund, as with typical grant funding programmes, most recipients will have to incur up to six months of costs before grant payments will issue. A proportion of the funding can be provided in advance to the higher education institutes involved in the projects and, in certain circumstances, to small firms with fewer than 50 employees.

In September 2019, the first payments of DTIF call 1 will have been made and I will be in a position to provide information by county at that point. I expect it will be late in 2019 before I can report on the full 2019 drawdown of DTIF funding. Pending this, the details of each of the successful projects, including the partners involved in each, a brief description of each project and the value of funding approved, is available on my Department website. I will be officially launching the second call of the disruptive technologies innovation fund in early July. As part of this event, an information session on the fund will be held for potential applicants.

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