Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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59. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the total value of Government funding allocated to the NDRC accelerator and NDRC pre-accelerator and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund between 2017 and 2023. [52796/23]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My colleague, Minister Eamon Ryan T.D., Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications has responsibility for the NDRC accelerator and NDRC pre-accelerator and has provided the information below.

NDRC is one of the State’s supports for early-stage enterprises operating in the pre-seed investment funding gap between entrepreneurs/researchers and the commercial investment sector offering accelerator and pre-seed support for enterprises in the digital sector.

NDRC was initially established in 2006 under a Concession Agreement. The initial value of the concession agreement was €5m per annum and was €3.5m annually since 2013.

Following a procurement process a contract was awarded in November of 2020 to Dogpatch Labs to continue the NDRC supported by its regional partners in Kerry, Cork and Galway. This contract expires in 2025 and has a value of €3.5million per annum.

My colleague, Minister Michael McGrath T.D., Minister for Finance has responsibility for the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and can be contacted on this.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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60. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount paid in late payment interest payments for goods and services provided to her Department in each of the years from 2016 to date in 2023; and separately, the top five highest late interest payments made in each of those years, and the service and goods supplier that received the payments, in tabular form. [52643/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, under the Prompt Payment Act 1997, and later the SI 580 2012 European Communities (Late Payment in Commercial Transactions) Regulations 2012, my Department is required to pay Prompt Payment Interest on valid invoices that are not processed within 30 days. The Department applies a daily interest rate (which is the ECB rate of plus the margin of 8%), followed by a compensating amount based on the value of the invoice, as follows: Invoice Amount not exceeding €1,000 - Compensation of €40; Invoice Amount exceeding €1,000 but not exceeding €10,000 - Compensation of €70; and Invoice Amount exceeding €10,000 - Compensation of €100.

My Department monitors these payments to ensure that they are paid as promptly as possible and to reduce the possibility of Prompt Payment Interest and associated compensation being applied.

At present my Department provides a financial shared service to the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (D/FHERIS). From January 2020 to March 2021 all published Prompt Payment returns for the Department of Education and D/FHERIS were reported under the Department of Education. This was due to the establishment of D/FHERIS during 2020 and the requirement for both Departments to use a common financial management system until the system was updated. Following the successful update to the financial management system, from April 2021 onwards, the system is able to fully separate out the Prompt Payment returns between the two Departments.

All Prompt Payment amounts are published each quarter and can be found here – www.gov.ie/en/collection/396d1d-prompt-payment-returns/.

The following is a summary by year of the costs included in the published reports since 2016.

• 2016: €3,017
• 2017: €4,137
• 2018: €5,014
• 2019: €7,552
• 2020: €7,270
• 2021: €21,143
• 2022: €9,194
• 2023: €12,491 (Jan-Sep)