Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I am very happy to work in this regard. The critical thing I am trying to do is make these supports available to our SMEs and family businesses, which employ two thirds of the people throughout our economy. I am very aware that the average SME does not have a finance director or a HR director. A lot of the great work is done around the kitchen table. This is why we are working with the centre of excellence at Enterprise Ireland and those who craft the schemes so we are reducing red tape and the administrative burden. Particularly for some of the lower-scale grants, such as with regard to digitalisation or sustainability supports, which can be less than €10,000, we should be able to turn them around in 24 hours. This is my target for the agencies. We are working to deliver this. There are other methodologies we can bring in to get efficiencies and ensure we are really supporting them at the forefront. The cost of doing business advisory forum is working with a lot of the regulators and their interoperability among the sectors. What they ask of various applicants may already have been asked in other areas and we want to get a floor under this and reduce the administrative burden.

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