Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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274. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of applications for innovation vouchers; the number issued; the number redeemed; the value of vouchers redeemed for each year of the programme; the criteria for approval for a voucher; if it is possible for a voucher to be extended; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29831/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher Initiative was introduced in 2007 in order to drive an on-going innovation culture shift within small enterprise by promoting and encouraging knowledge transfer between Ireland’s public knowledge providers and the small business community and creating greater synergies between the two. Under the initiative, vouchers worth €5,000 are allocated to small businesses whose proposals, to work with public knowledge providers on specific innovation issues, meet certain criteria.

The Innovation Voucher Programme has been running successfully since its inception and it is planned to continue the programme as long as the demand justifies it and it continues to meet a need in the small business sector.

It is not possible to supply numbers of all applications for vouchers as only those that pass basic eligibility criteria are recorded on Enterprise Ireland’s database. Vouchers are awarded following a review of both the eligibility of the applicant and the knowledge question and approximately 80% of applications are successful. The main reasons for applications failing to be approved are: non-eligibility of the applicant, insufficient information, ineligible activity and low levels of innovation.

The number of innovation vouchers issued, redeemed and their value for each year since the programme commenced is set out in the table.

Applications are initially assessed by Enterprise Ireland against the following criteria:

- Whether the company is a limited company

- That the company in question does not have a current “Active” Voucher

- That the company has not received more than the maximum number of Vouchers permitted. The maximum number of vouchers per company is three, one of which must be a co-funded voucher between Enterprise Ireland and the company.

- That the company has received less than 300k funding from Enterprise Ireland in the previous 5 years.

- De minimusrule – ensures that the company has received less than 200k in the previous 3 years as per EU State Aid rules.

If the application satisfies the above eligibility criteria the application proceeds to an evaluation. The evaluation of the application must demonstrate that the proposed activity requires an innovative solution which will have additional value and on-going benefits for the company. Each application is assessed against an agreed list of eligible and ineligible activities. The full list of eligible and ineligible activities is available on the Enterprise Ireland website at .

Innovation vouchers may be extended, on the application of the knowledge provider, if Enterprise Ireland is satisfied that the project is underway before the expiry date for the voucher. Under normal circumstances only one extension is permitted and the maximum extension granted is 6 months.