Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Healy-Rae for raising this important issue. Last year, the Government introduced two business support schemes that were designed by my Department and administered by the local authorities. The increased cost of business, ICOB, scheme was launched in March of 2024 and was delivered in two phases. The first phase was a broad scheme that distributed over €154 million to 75,000 SMEs in all sectors of the economy in recognition of the higher costs of doing business. The second phase was targeted specifically at businesses operating in those sectors that were most impacted by increasing costs and was focused on the retail, hospitality and beauty sectors. Almost 39,000 SMEs in those sectors received their second ICOB payment. A total of €90 million was paid out in the second phase of ICOB in 2024. As part of budget 2025 last October and in recognition of the continued high energy costs the Department introduced the power up grant. Under this scheme over 39,000 SMEs in the retail and hospitality sectors received a flat grant of €4,000 in the final months of the year. In total, over €158 million has been paid out through the power up grant. Taken together, the grant schemes paid out over €400 million to small and family-owned businesses right across the country in a very short period.

Following the launch of the power up grant, the Department and local authorities became aware of issues where many businesses were misclassified and were subsequently not eligible for the second ICOB payment and the grant. To address this, the Government recently approved an appeals process that will give those businesses in the retail, hospitality and beauty sectors that were not eligible for ICOB and the power up grant because of the misclassification issue the opportunity to register for these grants. I emphasise that this is not a reopening of the grant scheme. This is designed solely to allow those who were originally misclassified the opportunity to register for the grants. Subject to the agreement of the local authorities, we are working extensively with many of the local enterprise offices, LEOs, and intend to open the appeals as soon as possible. Local authorities will contact eligible businesses. They are currently working through those who were misclassified and did not receive a second payment under ICOB. We will inform those businesses of the necessary steps to reapply for the second phase of ICOB and the power up grant in the coming period.

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