Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The promotion of this scheme genuinely falls to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. It is about business. We will write the cheque at the end of it but it belongs to that Department. From my own direct knowledge of the scheme I agree the small businesses do not know about it. The local enterprise offices, LEOs, know about it and Enterprise Ireland, EI, knows about it for its clients as well. In my own work as a Deputy, I realise there is very little happening with it in Ireland. Through the institutes of technology, as they were, or the technological universities as they are now, work was done with schemes through the LEOs or EI to spread the information and the number of applicants in the region, as it takes some work. There is, therefore, a linkage that can be done through the LEOs and EI. In my region some of the institutes of technology have been very strong. It meant counties that were not linked directly to one of those were possibly losing out. There is linkage to be done, though it will be primarily by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

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