Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said, and the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, was the first to say it, we appreciate the fundamental importance of these companies to the operation of our economy and we recognised that through the support schemes we had in place. To deal with the Deputy's question regarding the future, I will park the EWSS for now, given that we have discussed it already. What does the future hold? The future is, first, to look at what role Enterprise Ireland can play in supporting small and medium-sized companies to scale up and become more innovative, with all the change that is under way and the challenges the Deputy referred to. Second, we have to look at funds such as the additional funding that is being made available to Ireland through the recovery fund and the Brexit adjustment reserve fund and see if we can use that type of funding to support SMEs in particular parts of the country that are being adversely affected by the issues we have touched on this evening. It will be an ongoing focus of mine in the implementation of this budget and beyond to try to deal with particular issues that are affecting the viability of Irish SMEs. I agree with the Deputy about their fundamental importance and the need for us to continue to find ways to support them.

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