Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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53. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will reconsider the qualifying criteria of the ICOB grant to allow tenants qualify as it is tenants who are struggling with the increased cost of business; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23168/24]

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Verona Murphy for allowing me to go first as I have a Business Committee meeting. I congratulate the Minister and Minister of State on their new roles.

I appeal to the Minister to re-examine the ICOB supports. It is a good scheme. Council officials and everyone worked hard on it, but it disqualifies people who rent a business premises. The owner pays the rates and therefore the businesspeople operating their businesses from there cannot apply to the scheme. It needs to be tweaked badly. Will the Minister please elaborate?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, I announced the reopening of the ICOB grant scheme from 15 May to 29 May. This is to ensure those business owners who missed the deadline can now register. They should do so without delay, and the sooner they register, the sooner the local authority can verify the information and make a payment to the businesses. I have also made a change to the scheme that allows for a second payment to be made to businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors or a double payment for businesses in those sectors that are now registering.

An important aspect of the increased cost of business grant scheme has been to directly involve the local authorities in the authorisation and payment processes, as they are closest to the commercial life in their cities and counties and work in the provision of supports to smaller enterprises via the local enterprise offices. This is the one reason eligibility is, in part, determined by the rates system, which is a good proxy for determining the scale and size of a business.

Businesses that are tenants can register as long as they are ratepayers. It has been brought to my attention that some businesses have entered into arrangements with their landlords whereby the rent payable includes an amount towards rates and their rates bill is in turn satisfied by the landlord. The legal position under section 4 of the Local Government Rates and Other Matters Act 2019 as well as the amendments introduced through the Historic and Archaeological Heritage and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023 is that tenants whose rent incorporates their rates obligation, which is remitted by the landlord, cannot be deemed to be ratepayers. The Deputy will appreciate that it would be inappropriate and possibly counterproductive for me to attempt to interfere with existing commercial arrangements between small businesses and their landlords in the context of the increased cost of business scheme.

The priority has been to ensure that as many businesses as possible receive the funding as quickly as possible. For those who cannot access the scheme, if there is an issue with the landlord or the way they have structured the payment of rates, there are other parts of the scheme they can access. When the scheme has concluded, we will look at what money is left over or has not been drawn down from the quarter of a billion euro. My job now is speed, to get as much money out to the SME sector as quickly as possible and not get dragged into putting additional conditions on those paying the money.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for his reply and the officials in Tipperary County Council and the Department who are dealing with the scheme. The Minister gave the reasons he cannot. He wants to spend the money and get it into the pockets of businesspeople who are struggling to keep the doors open. However, there is a considerable cohort that have an arrangement to pay rates as part of their rent. I do not know how we will tweak it, but it needs to be tweaked in some way because those people are very valuable in our towns and villages where they are paying for rateable premises. They need the supports and they are not getting them. The premises owners cannot get them either because they are not operating the businesses. It needs to be tweaked. Leaving it to the leftover fund before sharing or devising some scheme is not good enough. The scheme is more than a year old. I welcome the extension to 29 May and encourage all businesses to apply or to try to in any case. However, we must sort out this anomaly. We cannot leave it to the chance that money will be left over and we might tweak it then. It has to be tweaked. As the Minister will be aware, there are numerous businesses in his constituency and mine that rent premises, operate their businesses on that basis and the owners pay the rates. We need to tweak it immediately.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We all know commercial arrangements in how businesses operate with their landlords are different from business to business. It is difficult to put conditions in place to assess every single one. The best metric I have at the moment to get money out to vulnerable businesses as quickly as possible is linked directly to their rates. If I put more conditions in place right now or try to pave the way for opening the scheme to wider priorities, it will be difficult to get the money out quickly. I will assess it when the scheme concludes. Businesses benefit from a number of the other measures we have brought in, such as the accelerated grant for capital expenditure and the changes to PRSI and Microfinance Ireland. There have been a number of changes that benefit them.

The critical point is that this scheme is not a year old. People need to realise that after a measure is announced in the budget, legislation is needed, it has to be designed and it takes time for a scheme to be operational. We have been clear with businesses. We are marketing strongly now and asking them to please register for the scheme. It is a key cash injection into their bank accounts to recognise there are increased costs to doing business. We will continue to support businesses in the next budget, which will be important to demonstrate clearly that we are listening to the SME sector and we value the employment they provide which accounts for 70% of all jobs.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I do not know if the Minister does value them. He says that, but the scheme has to be tweaked because there is a big cohort of people in this situation.

The Minister said it takes time from an announcement made in the budget. The budget speech is hardly over before his colleagues go around the country saying this or that scheme has been announced before any legislation is in place to deal with it. The Government cannot have it every way. It cannot advertise that everything is rosy. Everything is not rosy in business. The Government has added a huge cost to that with the carbon and fuel taxes, putting back in place the rebates that had been given back, as well as the additional sick days, bank holidays and parental leave days. It is not that they are not lovely announcements but they are crippling small businesses.

The Minister knows that better than I do. He is living in the real world. I appreciate he is a man on the ground. It is fine to make these announcements on the minimum wage but it all adds to the pressure at a time of severe crisis in business. There are severe issues with costs, including injury costs, electricity and everything else. We need to be more understanding with a scheme like this. There will always be issues that need to be tweaked. There should be a review after three months, rather than waiting a year or a year and a month or two months to look back on it. We need to look at these schemes and have some sort of a review after three months to see how they are bedding in and whether there are too many roadblocks for the small businesses that need the supports.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I would robustly point out that the Government is listening to the SME sector. That is demonstrated by our warehousing of debt at 0% for those who experienced difficulties over the Covid period. Some €20 billion has been put in towards Covid and Brexit, with €12 billion put in through the past two budgets. We have halved inflation, which is a key metric of business. Energy costs are coming down substantially. We want to see that being passed on to businesses, and indeed consumers. The 9% VAT rate relating to the energy sector is hitting businesses right now and there are 15 interventions that we have done through the SME package which was brought forward and approved by the Government last week. It clearly demonstrates that this Government, through every step of uncertainty in the past four years, has been front and centre in supporting businesses. In some cases, we put them on life support and ensured they were able to survive and, when restrictions were lifted, we took out the jump leads to restart them. Our economy took off like a rocket. We have 2.8 million people employed in this economy. We are here to protect and grow that and to ensure that businesses can survive, grow and prosper into the future.