Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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38. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of businesses that have applied for assistance under stream 1 of the Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme to date by county; the number of applications that have been successful by county; the estimated value or worth of the support to date for each county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4969/23]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Under the Ukraine Enterprise Crisis Scheme which was launched in October 2022, the total number of completed applications received to date was nineteen.  Fourteen of those applications were approved by Enterprise Ireland's Investment Committee. 

The following table provides data on numbers of approved applications per County and the value of funding approved per County.

Approval has subsequently been received by the EU Commission in December 2022 to augment the Scheme in line with the amended EU Temporary Crisis Framework.Sanction by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is currently awaited to implement the amended Scheme. 

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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39. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of businesses that have applied for assistance under stream 2 of the Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme to date by county; the number of applications that have been successful by county; the estimated value or worth of the support to date for each county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4970/23]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Under Stream 2 of the Ukraine Enterprise Crisis Scheme which was launched in October 2022, of the total number of the 76 application packs issued by Enterprise Ireland, to date one application has been returned.  The response to Stream 2 reflects that a significant number of companies requested application packs, but they have not yet been converted into application forms mainly due to companies reviewing  their financial year and comparable energy costs over the eligible period.

Approval has subsequently been received by the EU Commission in December 2022 to augment the Scheme in line with the amended EU Temporary Crisis Framework.   Sanction by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is currently awaited to implement the amended Scheme.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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40. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of businesses that have applied for loans under the growth and sustainability loan scheme date by county; the number of applications that have been successful by county; the estimated value or worth of the loans to date for each county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4972/23]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The €500 million Growth and Sustainability Loan Scheme (GSLS) will make competitively priced loans of between €25,000 and €3 million available to SMEs, including farmers and fishers and small mid-caps, for terms of up to ten years, with loans of up to €500,000 available unsecured. The scheme will target a minimum of 30% of the lending volume towards Environmental Sustainability purposes with the aim of encouraging SMEs to take positive actions in support of the climate change agenda. The scheme will be delivered by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) through participating finance providers.

A funding agreement was signed between the Ministers for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Agriculture, Food and Marine and the European Invest Fund (EIF) in December 2022. This allows for the use of EIF counter-guarantees, thereby significantly reducing the risk of the guarantee to the state. The funding agreement is only the first stage in the development of the GSLS which must go through several further steps before it can become operational. Firstly, an Open Call must be held to allow finance providers to apply to become lenders under the scheme. This is due to go to market in the coming days but is required to remain open to applicants for several weeks. Further to this, each applicant must be evaluated not just by SBCI but also the EIF. 

In addition to this, agreement has to be reached on the Green Criteria to ensure Ireland complies with the requirements of the European Investment Bank Groups' "Green Eligibility Checker." State Aid notifications must be submitted to the European Commission and the IT and operational builds completed in the SBCI and the finance providers themselves. This indicates the complexity of the structure of the scheme but businesses can be assured that all parties are working as hard as possible to deliver this important scheme as early as possible. 

It is expected that several lenders will be going to market with loan products under the GSLS by the end of Q2, 2023. However, prior to this, I am pleased to confirm that the Ukraine Credit Guarantee Scheme is now operational, with loans of up to 6 years and €1 million. It is currently available through Bank of Ireland with other finance providers to follow in the coming months.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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41. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of businesses that have applied for loans under the small firm's investment in energy efficiency scheme date by county; the number of applications that have been successful by county; the estimated value or worth of the loans to date for each county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4973/23]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Small Firms Investment in Energy Efficiency scheme was announced in Budget 2023. The objective of the scheme is to support capital investment by businesses to reduce carbon emissions based on energy efficiency projects. The rationale of the scheme would be to support companies to reduce their carbon emissions and overall energy costs by accelerating the adoption of low carbon technologies or processes.

Taking into account national policy and in consultation with the LEO network, Enterprise Ireland is developing guidelines and eligibility criteria for the rollout of the new programme by each of the 31 Local Enterprise Offices. A budget of €2m has been allocated nationally and it is planned to launch the scheme in Q1 2023.