Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State. As someone who has spent my recent years advising SMEs, it is important to remember that a lot of them do not have the capacity to be continually checking what grants are open for application and navigating difficult processes, so it is important that we have a streamlined, efficient process. Will the Minister of State tell me how long it is taking to finalise and confirm draft applications? In the Department's view, is the scheme working or is there anything we can do to improve it? What can we do to improve the uptake of the scheme? While it is great there are 200 applications, there are a lot more than 200 SMEs in this country. Are we appropriately advertising the scheme to make sure we are encouraging uptake to help support these SMEs with their energy costs at a time when they are particularly suffering with them?

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