Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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77. To ask the Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment the efforts that can be made to ensure that online marketing campaigns targeting consumers to support local business are actually delivering business to Irish local business. [35100/20]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department is working with the Local Enterprise Offices on a local media campaign to support the ‘Shop Local’ initiatives that are already very active across the country. The purpose of this campaign will be to encourage communities to support businesses in their area by shopping locally and safely.

Even while under Level 5 COVID-19 restrictions, where people cannot physically enter certain stores, they can continue to buy from them through ‘remote ordering’. Orders can be placed for products, including non-essential items, either online or by phone, and fulfilled through home delivery or collection.

The growth in demand for shopping online is driving the retail sector to also develop its online trading capability in order to enhance its competitiveness. This is an important route for retail businesses in the current crisis, and will be an important element in their recovery over the longer term.

The Local Enterprise Offices’ Trading Online Voucher Scheme is available to all micro enterprises with up to 10 employees, including those in the retail sector through the Local Enterprise Office network nationwide. As of 6 November, 13,789 applications have been received, of which 10,721 have been approved so far, to a value of €25.39m.

The €2,500 Trading Online Vouchers are a key government support to help small and micro enterprises, with very limited or no e-commerce presence, to get online, boost their sales and reach new markets – particularly during this difficult period, when so many small businesses are closed to the public. Businesses can also apply for a second voucher where they have successfully utilised their first one, which brings the overall total voucher amount available up to €5,000.

The COVID-19 Online Retail Scheme has been introduced to support Irish-owned retail businesses to rapidly adapt and enhance their online business capability as they work within the COVID-19 public health measures. It helps to position retail businesses for recovery in the future, once the public health emergency and related measures have passed. Grants ranging from €10,000 up to €40,000 are payable to successful applicants under the Scheme. An additional €5m was provided as part of Budget 2021. Earlier this week the successful applicants under the second call of the COVID-19 Online Retail Scheme was announced. 145 retailers have been approved €5.3M in funding as part of the scheme.

I would like to thank retailers and their customers for their efforts at this difficult time. By each of us following the spirit of these new rules and working together we can hopefully return to a lower level of the Living with Covid-19 framework.

I think that we all need to make the effort to shop locally where we can and support local business.