Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will introduce measures to support established businesses who are finding it difficult to compete with new businesses who are availing enterprise supports grants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5598/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The enterprise support agencies of my Department, in particular Enterprise Ireland and the County and City Enterprise Boards, provide a suite of programmes to assist companies to develop their enterprises and support both start up and established businesses. All companies eligible for support from the Agencies have the same access to State services regardless of their location or status.

While grant support is focussed in the main, on the manufacturing and internationally-traded sectors, for reasons of the potential for deadweight and displacement, many locally trading, established firms can avail of soft supports, such as mentoring and training, etc.

Since coming into office, this Government has demonstrated our determination to fundamentally address the challenge of supporting micro and small businesses. For example, we have introduced the Microenterprise Loan Fund and the Credit Guarantee Scheme to assist both new and established businesses in gaining access to much-needed credit. These Schemes are available to all businesses, including those trading locally.

I am currently in the process of reforming the national micro and small business support infrastructure by dissolving the City and County Enterprise Boards and establishing new Local Enterprise Offices that will operate from within Local Authorities, but with clear oversight by Enterprise Ireland. To this end, a new Microenterprise Division has been established within Enterprise Ireland and this will become the national Centre of Excellence for supporting micro and small businesses, benchmarked to international standards.

This fundamental reform offers the opportunity to revisit and refocus national policy in relation to the micro and small business sector with a view to ensuring that the State supports are properly targeted at that sector and that the LEOs become a “First Stop Shop” for micro and small businesses for the range of supports available across the system.

The LEOs will engage will all local businesses and will offer a range of soft supports to those that are locally trading with a viable business proposition, including help with applying for a Microfinance Loan. They will also be well positioned to assist in the early identification of start-ups with the best potential to move into the Enterprise Ireland portfolio.