Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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191. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his plans to review the key outcomes and key impacts for the LEO network in performance budgeting; his views on the introduction of key outcomes and impacts for green budgeting across all departmental programmes, as reported on in the annual Public Service Performance Report; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5953/24]

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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192. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to outline the targets for Green for Business take up in each county for 2024 and for an update, if available, on the applications approved, training attended or completed assessments broken down by county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5954/24]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Green for Business scheme forms part of a suite of Lean, Green and Digital supports offered by the Local Enterprise Offices (LEO) to enable small businesses to be more efficient, productive, and sustainable. It is a free programme that helps small businesses take the first step towards becoming more sustainable.

It is also a necessary requirement for businesses to undertake in order to avail of the Energy Efficiency Grant, as it helps to identify potential projects that can be undertaken to reduce energy usage and make businesses more efficient.

The LEO network's overall target metrics for programmes, including Green for Business, are agreed when the LEO Budget is presented to the Board of Enterprise Ireland for approval. After this, the Enterprise Ireland Centre of Excellence (CoE) will indicate to individual LEOs their budget allocation to fund these schemes for the coming year. The Green for Business target is a total figure across the LEO network. As this process has not yet been completed, the 2024 target is not yet available.

For the benefit of the Deputy, below are the latest preliminary figures on the number approvals for the scheme in 2023. The 2023 target for the Green for Business scheme had been set at 550 approvals nationally which has been achieved, based on these preliminary figures.