Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the home energy scheme that is being rolled out.There is going to be 100% support for people in need. That is all across the country. We saw that there were supports being put in place, in particular for just transition areas that were especially vulnerable and affected, maybe, by changes in traditional industries. Now we are going to be seeing this home energy upgrade scheme to reduce costs. When people can put insulation into walls, attics and cavity areas they can reduce costs by two thirds. Under the general scheme, people can get up to €25,000 in grants. Many people are interested, particularly for their parents. I am getting queries about how people can reduce heating costs for their parents. They may be living alone and are older in age. This is particularly the case in the west of Ireland where housing stock is a lot older. It is absolutely wonderful to see it. We are going to see €8 billion invested up to 2030. Of course, we need an apprenticeship scheme in order that we might scale up and have people in place to do this retrofitting.

The second fund I would like to mention is the seed innovation fund, which was announced this week. There will be more than €90 million available through this fund to support early-stage companies. It is basically venture capital for early-stage companies that are more high-risk. We have great talent in Ireland. All across our universities we are seeing campus-based start-ups in fintech, pharma, medtech and so many areas, particularly in green technologies and healthcare. In order for these start-ups to roll out from campuses, we need the support of seed capital. The fund is going to launch later this week and will be managed by Enterprise Ireland. It is part of the European Investment Fund. It seeds matched funding, €30 million from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and another matched fund from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund in conjunction with the European Investment Fund. It is phenomenal to see this injection of money. We have the talent, researchers and entrepreneurs out there. We are seeing all of this coming together and now we have the funds to match it. I look forward to seeing the companies and indigenous start-ups coming from Ireland.