Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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345. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if his Department has developed a national e-commerce strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18635/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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My colleague, the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation leads in policy development and implementation to enhance Ireland's enterprise environment to support the start-up and growth of competitive firms in Ireland and sustainable development for enterprises of all sizes.  My Department, through the Trading Online Voucher Scheme, is contributing to this work by assisting small businesses that are not yet trading online, to develop their ecommerce capability, pairing training with financial support of up to €2,500. The scheme which is developed and funded by my Department is delivered throughout Ireland by the Local Enterprise Offices and is contributing to the sustainable development of these enterprises. 

The Scheme has been highly effective in achieving its objectives with 4,300 vouchers approved to date and over 10,000 businesses benefitting from training delivered by the Local Enterprise Offices since 2014. Businesses, both urban and rural, who participate grow their sales on average by 21%, increase employment by 35% and 3 out of 5 begin exporting for the first time. 

My aim is to help even more businesses to trade online. My Department is currently scoping initiatives to build on the success of the scheme, including the development of a national website infrastructure for online application to the scheme to make it easier for more businesses to apply and for businesses to obtain information when developing their online trading presence businesses.