Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department regularly explores ways to assist businesses and to create an environment that stimulates their growth. However, it is important that Government intervention is focused on those areas where there is there is a market failure.

My Department, working with Enterprise Ireland currently offers a range of supports for exporting businesses, such as training, in-market support, and trade missions. There are also a number of schemes which my Department has developed, working through SBCI, which provide financing support for businesses, including exporting businesses, including the Ukraine Guarantee Scheme and the Sustainability and Growth Loan Scheme, which will be launched next month.

Export credit insurance is available from the private market. In early 2020, in the context of the major disruptions to global trade and supply chains in the early stages of the spread of the coronavirus, my Department competed an assessment of the need for state supported export credit insurance. The assessment found that Irish insurers, as subsidiaries or branches of international insurer groups, are financially strong, and did not need to be financially supported by a Government intervention during the pandemic.

My Department has continued to monitor the export credit insurance market and in 2021, with the assistance of an external export credit insurance expert, conducted an internal review to assess the potential need for a state-backed export credit insurance scheme. This review involved engagement with trade credit insurers, industry and other relevant stakeholders such as Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. Following these consultations and on reviewing Ireland's strong trade export statistics over the last ten years, it was again found that there was no clear demand or need for State intervention in terms of export credit insurance.

Exports and international trade will remain central to Ireland’s growth model and economic strategy in the years to come.

As outlined in the White Paper on Enterprise, we have set the ambition of expanding our exporting base with 2000 additional exporting companies, and 50% more large Irish exporting companies, by 2030. To accomplish this, we will focus on enhancing productivity and developing an integrated system-wide approach to accelerating start-up growth and scaling.

In addition, the extension of the LEO mandate to work with prospective exporters, that have grown to between 10 and 50 employees, will bridge an existing gap and better integrate micro enterprises into the scaling loop.