Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My Department established the digital transition fund as part of Ireland's national recovery and resilience plan with the objective of driving the digital transformation of enterprise in Ireland. The Minister, Deputy Burke, spoke earlier about the drive that is being made by the Department to ensure all businesses across Ireland reach those targets. The fund was specifically designed to aid the achievement of the high-level workstreams of Ireland’s national digital strategy, Harnessing Digital, and Ireland’s contribution to the EU digital decade targets as they relate to digitalisation of enterprise.

The target set out in the national digital strategy is that at least 800 businesses will be supported by 2026 under the digital transition fund. Good progress has been made towards achieving this target and, as of the end of 2024, a total of 539 companies have been approved for €45.2 million in funding for direct grant supports under the digital transition fund, of which 504 are SMEs. A total of 195 companies, of which 189 are SMEs, have already received funding to the value of €12.9 million.

My Department, together with the enterprise agencies, continues to make concerted efforts to raise awareness amongst businesses of the opportunities arising from digitalisation and the help that is available to them to assist them in digitalising their businesses. This was the rationale for the development of the grow digital portal, which my Department launched last summer. The portal provides businesses with a toolkit to help identify the opportunities that digitalisation offers them and points to the supports available to them. It has a case study catalogue with digital success stories showcasing examples of how traditional and locally trading businesses have embraced digital solutions to boost their operations. This is particularly important to help those less digitally savvy businesses.

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