Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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412. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if she will provide an overview of Enterprise Ireland’s capital investment initiative; and the number of small and medium enterprises that have applied to the initiative in each year since it was established in tabular form. [12743/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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In early 2015, Enterprise Ireland launched the Capital Investment Initiative to assist client companies improve productivity and competitiveness through the acquisition of new capital equipment and technology. This initiative, which is targeted at manufacturing and/or an internationally traded services SMEs, provides grant aid of up to a maximum of €250,000. Approved funding under this initiative can be used to purchase new or second-hand equipment including reasonable direct installation costs - second hand equipment must be less than 7 years old and more than €10,000 in value. Refurbished equipment will be evaluated on a case by case basis by Enterprise Ireland Assessor.

In 2018 Enterprise Ireland will run 11 Capital Investment Initiative calls throughout the year. Submitted projects are assessed by the Capital Investment Initiative Committee based on the company's application, financial information and a Commercial Assessment of the project. The approval process takes approximately 8 weeks.

Since the Capital Investment initiative was launched in 2015 Enterprise Ireland has made 161 approvals to 151 SMEs. Enterprise Ireland do not report on the number of applications received in any of their competitions. Details of approvals are set out in the following table: