Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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The Minister, Deputy Burke, has just bounded into the Chamber.

Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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The Minister is bounding in with joy.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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He is doing so with great energy.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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It is probably new energy.I thank the Minister for being here. I always commend members of Cabinet who are here to take Commencement Matters, especially on a Tuesday. I thank the Minister for making the effort to be here; it is really appreciated.

Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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The Minister is more than welcome. It is great to have him in the Chamber. I realise it is a very busy morning and there was a Cabinet meeting. This Commencement matter relates to the increased cost of business, ICOB, scheme, which is a welcome scheme announced in the budget last year. It meant we were going to put €250 million into small business throughout Ireland. It was a significant package and meant that we were going to give rebates of up to €5,000 to the majority of small businesses. It was really welcomed by the business community itself.

I had the pleasure of meeting the majority if not all of the business owners in Bandon, Kinsale, Clonakilty and Skibbereen to go through the applications and inform them how the scheme actually works. It is a simple scheme requiring the submission of a minor application to one's local authority. The payments were to become available towards the end of April or at the start of May at the earliest but, unfortunately, that has not been the story in County Cork. Over 5,000 applications have been made but the majority of them have not been approved yet. My office is inundated by businesses that have been waiting for this money for the past six to eight weeks. There seems to be no real understanding of what the issues are.

Two weeks ago, they got a communication from their local authority asking them to confirm that the classification of their business was correct. This was a simple notification sent out two weeks ago. I have absolutely no idea why it was sent, but it was another delaying tactic from the local authority. There is potentially €25 million held in Cork County Council's account today that has not been paid to small businesses under pressure. I believe the Minister's Department has even paid them a fee to work through the paperwork, so there is potentially more money gone to the local authority regarding this.

The small businesses are absolutely frustrated that this organisation, which hounds them for rates on a continuous basis, will not pay them the grant that is applicable to them. The money from the Minister's Department has gone to the local authority but the small businesses cannot access it. They are now trying to survive in very trying circumstances when it comes to business itself. We need to get clarity regarding where this actual grant is going at the moment. Is the money sitting in a bank account? Has the Department paid the local authority a fund in order that it can work through this process? When will these applicants actually get the funding?

There were over 5,000 applications in County Cork. We are looking at a potential sum of up to €25 million going to these businesses and they are absolutely frustrated that the local authority seems to be the issue when it comes to making the payments. The majority of other local authorities have made the payments. Why is Cork County Council lagging behind? I ask the Minister to give me an update on where we are at the moment. How much has been paid out? What do we need to do? At the moment, it just is not working and, unfortunately, small businesses are really feeling the pain as a result of what Cork County Council has failed to deliver.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Lombard for raising this very important issue and raising awareness of the increased cost of business scheme, which is very important as a mechanism for the Government to assist businesses with the cost of doing business. Supporting SMEs is one of the Government's clear priorities and the increased cost of business grant is a key focus and part of our Government's response. The Government signed off on a package of €257 million for the increased cost of business grant and local authorities, funded through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, are administering the roll-out of the grant to qualifying businesses on behalf of our Department. The grant is squarely aimed at SMEs. For qualifying businesses with a 2023 commercial rates bill of less than €10,000, the ICOB grant will be paid at a rate of 50% of the business's commercial rate bill for 2023. For qualifying businesses with a 2023 commercial rate bill of between €10,000 and €30,000, the ICOB will be €5,000.

Local authorities wrote to rate-paying businesses with details of how to register for the scheme and businesses then verified their details through an online portal.We ensured it was as simple a registration system as possible, as we know businesses are busy and their time is very valuable. The process will take less than five minutes. In March, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, working with the Department of Social Protection, published an assessment of the increased costs of the forthcoming changes to working conditions. The analysis notes that businesses operating in the retail and hospitality sectors are among those most affected. Informed by that analysis on 15 May, the Government announced a reopening of the cost-of-business scheme for a further 14 days and launched a second phase of the scheme, with businesses in hospitality and retail sectors receiving a second or double payment. During the reopening, the Department ran a nationwide communications campaign to ensure that businesses were aware of the grant.

As of 10 a.m yesterday, 17 June, there have been a total of 80,577 properties registered, representing 66% of estimated eligible businesses, which includes 5,245 registrations in the reopening period. To date, more than 43,000 SMEs have received payment under the ICAP scheme, amounting to over €90 million. In the case of Cork County Council 1,029 SMEs have received a grant, representing about €2 million worth of payments to those SMEs. Cork County Council is working on processing the remaining 4,901 properties that have registered for the grant.

To answer Senator Lombard's question, I confirm that all local authorities have received 50% of the money in advance. My Department was very clear that we wanted to ensure local authorities have no funding issue, which is very important. Under the service level agreement with my Department, local authorities are being paid for administering the grant. I want to work proactively with local authorities to ensure that this valuable money gets out to businesses as soon as possible.

It is disappointing that Cork County Council is lagging behind the rest of the local authority network. I was in Cork last Thursday and offered to meet with the executive or those administering the grant but, unfortunately, they were unavailable to meet. I asked to meet with the team doing the actual administration, which I think is very important but, unfortunately, they were not available to meet either. I raised my concerns with the CCMA; I know that Moira Murrell the new chief executive took office yesterday and she has assured me of her full co-operation in this area. Unfortunately, and I say this in no arrogant way, Government Ministers have very little time and when going to a constituency, we really need the co-operation of the local authortiy network to work with us. I want to work with local authorities. I have been a Minister with responsibility for local government for two and a half years, right through the Covid period and I know how important it is to get rates, rebates etc. into local government to ensure that they can deliver all their services. My job is to be proactive, to work with local authorities and I hope that in the spirit of that co-operation, in the future we will see Cork County Council willingly working with Government to ensure that this money is paid out to the many businesses and rate payers in their area.

Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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I am absolutely shocked by the figures the Minister has presented. If I am reading them correctly, 1,029 grants have actually been paid, to the value of roughly €2 million and there are potentially 5,000 grants remaining to be paid. If we are dealing with a scenario that they have only paid 1,000 of the potential 6,000 grants and we gave a commitment as a Government that this would be paid by the end of April or start of May, that is absolutely shocking. The accountability here is frightening for me. Small businesses are on their knees. The money is in the bank account. There is potentially €25 million euros waiting at the moment to be paid out. A sum of €2 million has been paid out from the local authority in Cork itself and 90% have been paid out across the country. We have a problem here in how this happened. I am deeply frustrated by this. It is not the Minister's fault because he made the money available, but it is deeply frustrating that the local authority has left the businesses of Cork hanging for the money. It is just not good enough.

What do we do now? If the local authority does not have time to meet the Minister, which is shocking in its own right, we need to do something about how it operates. It has no real sympathy or empathy for the businesses of Cork that need this money and does not seem to be accountable to national Government. The knock-on implications for businesses that I support and represent could result in them going under because of the local authority's inability to process this form.The knock-on implication is that businesses I support and represent will go under because of our local authority's inability to process this form. It is illogical.

That is my frustration. I need to know how we can make sure these 5,000 applications will be approved because, at the moment, the local authority just does not seem up to the job.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Lombard again for his persistence on this very important issue. He is right that there are fewer than 5,000 businesses awaiting payment. To be very clear and honest, as regards the service level agreement, there was a date of November included in the original agreement I inherited. As we got a new round of ICOB, however, we spoke to all the local authorities and worked with them. Now we see that many of them - over 90%, or indeed 100% - have approved payments, and that is very strong.

In connection with Cork, I spoke to the new chief executive of the council and she has committed to working in a positive manner with the Government to ensure that people are paid. The acting chief executive sent me a text message on the Thursday stating that she was available to have a phone conversation. My view is that we had enough virtual meetings during the Covid pandemic. When I go into a constituency, I want to sit down with the team, talk to them in person and help them, with a view to being proactive. I am here to help and to try to see what we can do as a Government to support Cork County Council get this vital money we have provided into the bank accounts of businesses. I encourage them to get their act together in that regard. I am absolutely willing to help them in that manner. I am here as a former Minister of State with responsibility for local government and someone who knows how the system works, having been first elected a councillor in 2009. I hope and I feel, having brought this to the attention of the CCMA, that the new chief executive will bring the energy into this role and we will see him progress this in the next week. However, we need to see progress in the next week in respect of approvals and get the data every day and payments into the bank accounts. This, together with the 15 points on our SME package, is a strong, robust way to show we as a Government are listening to businesses. I look forward to putting together a very strong budget now for businesses that will have the stamp of our enterprise policy all over its paperwork come October.