Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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3. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the means by which existing grant and support schemes are being simplified to make them more accessible to small and medium businesses; the steps his Department is taking to cut unnecessary red tape and reduce the administrative burden on small businesses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51025/25]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The previous question is a very important one. Will the Minister outline the means by which the Department is simplifying access to existing grant and support schemes for our SMEs and the steps he is taking to reduce the administrative burden for those businesses? The administrative burden on small and medium-sized enterprises is a major impediment for business owners around the country at the moment, sucking vital resources away from businesses that could be better deployed elsewhere. By no means am I suggesting reducing the needed scrutiny in the context of the previous question.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her question. I am happy to inform the Deputy that my Department is making significant progress in simplifying the application process for enterprise grants, particularly those administered through the local enterprise offices and Enterprise Ireland.

Following instruction from my Department through the recently established small business unit, the Enterprise Ireland LEO centre of excellence has completed a comprehensive review of application requirements for each of the LEO grants. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of questions across multiple grant schemes. For example, the number of questions regarding the priming and business expansion grants has reduced by 47%, the green for business grant by 30% and the feasibility grant by 28%. Work has already commenced with the online application service provider to make the recommended changes and to merge the application processes for the digital for business and green for business consultancies with the respective follow-on grants: grow digital and the energy-efficiency grant.

Enterprise Ireland is also driving this process through major initiatives. The service delivery transformation programme will introduce a new operating model, along with advanced technology and data capabilities, to deliver service excellence. The start-up Ireland programme is focused on creating a better journey for start-ups and entrepreneurs, strengthening ecosystem co-ordination and enhancing both national and international connectivity. Together, these programmes will help to deliver greater impact and support for Irish enterprise.

Work is also under way with the National Enterprise Hub to examine how it can be utilised to reduce the administrative burden for SMEs applying for Government supports. Scoping work is taking place to identify common data points in applications, starting with agencies under the control of my Department, and to consider how the National Enterprise Hub can be further developed in line with the "once-only" principle of data provision.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The issue is that we still have too many people coming into our constituency offices who cannot get the help and support they need to access grants. I hope that any grants announced in the budget will be thought out properly. The way to do that as regards the design of the grants is to have small businesses involved at the design stage of these grants because they will be able to see what impediments may arise that would prevent them from accessing the grants. You often find that the businesses that least need a grant can get it while those that really need it cannot access it either because of the criteria being too tight or the administrative burden being too large. This significant time and effort could be redirected to other business and substantial costs could be saved if compliance and regulations in public authority reporting could be eased. Again, I am in no way suggesting deregulation. We only have to look at the issue of defective concrete blocks to see the results of deregulation in this country.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We are not really talking about regulation here but about the administrative procedures for small businesses to get the funding they need to develop online platforms, to become more sustainable and to meet their objectives. What we want to do is to make that process easier. This is not a significant risk to the taxpayer. Many of these grants are particularly small and many genuine enterprises just do not have time because time is their scarcest resource. We are working through the process with Enterprise Ireland. We have made significant progress on our LEOs and the users should now be seeing the benefits of that. On design and policy, our SME test has now been brought to our State agencies. We are really looking at thinking small first. How do changes, whether a statutory instrument or the design of a scheme, impact on the smallest businesses that do not have the resource base to go through very significant administrative processes? We are doing a huge amount of work on that. That is on the policy side. That is how you change how the scope is determined across government.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Will the Minister think about this? In Sinn Féin's manifesto and over a number of years, we have envisaged the establishment of a mol gnó, a new Irish enterprise agency focused specifically on scaling existing Irish businesses. This would be a strong agency for non-export focused start-ups and established companies. It would specifically cover the void in support from existing agencies like Enterprise Ireland and the IDA. Enterprise Ireland and the IDA do a really good job but we are not using the space we have at the moment to address over-reliance on foreign direct investment. Although we absolutely need and thrive on foreign direct investment, we have to bridge that gap.

In setting up a new agency – I hate the idea of a new agency – we must ensure it is something with specific targets and aims for that area to increase our indigenous businesses rapidly in the space they have been given.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the feedback and ideas because we all need ideas to come forward. Along with Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs, I am particularly focused on making things more accessible and trying to reduce the administrative burden. I am trying to establish a new accelerator programme for our country. The Deputy will be aware of PorterShed in Galway, Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, the NDRC and issues around it. We need to ensure that we have a stable landscape for those businesses that are part of the indigenous economy so that they can thrive. It is to be hoped we can bring that forward through the capital allocations we have received.

A new national accelerator programme will bring those strands together and ensure that prime space is kept for businesses which need it in order to give them the opportunity to grow and scale. We know at this point in time that we are very challenged by the US. The EU has been left behind in the growth and scaling of companies, in particular on the tech side. We are far behind at this point in time and have a huge amount of work to do in this area. I am also open to ideas from colleagues and look forward to working with the Deputy.