John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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194. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of companies currently registered as social enterprises with the Companies Registration Office. [15808/21]

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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195. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of companies that were registered as social enterprises with the Companies Registration Office in 2019. [15809/21]

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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196. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of companies that were registered as social enterprises with the Companies Registration Office in 2020. [15810/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 194 to 196, inclusive, together.

There is no specific legal form under which social enterprises must operate. A social enterprise operating under company law has various options available including registering as a company limited by guarantee (CLG) or as a private company limited by shares (LTD). Irrespective of the option chosen, the Companies Registration Office cannot readily identify companies as social enterprises and statistics are not available.

The Deputy may be aware that my colleague, the Minister for Rural and Community Development, has policy responsibility for social enterprise and further information may be available from that Department.