Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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96. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if the early experience with the small company rescue scheme is demonstrating that it has the capacity to allow viable businesses restructure arrangements in order that jobs and livelihoods can be sustained. [62031/22]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I am pleased to say that the Small Company Administrative Rescue Process has been very well received since its commencement on 7 December 2021. Officials from my Department worked closely with stakeholders, via the Company Law Review Group, in developing the legislation to ensure that the process reflected a fair balance of the sometimes, competing interests of parties affected by corporate rescue. Therefore, I am not surprised that industry practitioners, small business representatives and experts in the field of insolvency have welcomed the Process.

The Process was designed to provide a timelier and more cost-effective alternative to examinership which comparatively minimises requirements for court oversight. As such the Process is a welcome addition to the corporate rescue toolkit for our small company sector which accounts for over 98% of companies and employs in the region of 788,000 people.

The availability of the Process as a means to restructure can also encourage creditors to engage constructively with viable companies in distress diminishing the necessity to enter into it.

My Department is closely monitoring usage of the Process and to date, 22 companies have formally engaged with it.