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

The €250,000 is for the high potential start-up units. It is just one of a range of supports available to businesses. I refer the Deputy to the document, Overview of Government Supports for Indigenous Businesses, which is available on my Department's website. It is a useful document, which outlines all of the supports that are available to help companies to scale up, invest in research and innovation and improve their management capabilities. The OECD review of our indigenous sector published last month contains a number of suggestions that I will act on as part of the SME strategy. We want to target a 50% increase in the number of SMEs exporting through the expansion of programmes and the development of export capable firms. We also want to broaden the policy focus at the local enterprise offices, which are doing wonderful work with companies, to enable them to work with more companies and increase the adoption of best practice management techniques, including in the key challenge areas of digital and automation skills, sales, marketing and accountancy. We also want to encourage a wider take-up of Skillnet Ireland programmes to develop management capabilities in the Irish SME sector. I also want start-ups to step up their financial skills. Research has shown that while many of our businesses are really good, they are not capable of making good propositions to banks to secure funding. Rather than always looking to traditional lending, they need to look at equity and a range of financial instruments that they can use to invest in their business.

In regard to our young people, I go abroad on trade missions with pride. We have one of the best educated workforces in the world such that when foreign direct investment is coming to this country we can point to our young, highly educated and agile workforce. Also, as a committed member of the European Union, we have access to a huge market. There are many positives.

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