Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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325. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the take-up rate of the LEO energy efficiency grant, by the number of businesses issued with a grant, the number of businesses supported per local authority, and the funding issued per local authority, in tabular form. [11951/24]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Integrating Decarbonisation and Net Zero Commitments is a key policy priority for the White Paper on Enterprise. The Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) are actively engaged in pursuing this priority through the LEOs suite of supports of competitiveness and productivity supports for small businesses.

The ‘All in a Day’s Work’ campaign by the LEOs highlights the benefits of making a business more efficient, productive, and sustainable, particularly focusing on how the Lean, Green and Digital products offered by the LEOs can help businesses to save time, money, and energy.

The Energy Efficiency Grant, available through the Local Enterprise Offices, provides funding to small businesses to invest in more energy efficient technology. It supports the investment in technologies and equipment identified through a green consultancy assignment, aiming to reduce the impact of enterprises on the environment, thereby increasing the agility and resilience of these business. The grant is 50% of eligible costs, up to a maximum grant of €5,000. The Government has recently announced that it intends to increase the maximum grant amount to €8,000 for applicants in the retail and hospitality sector.

Businesses must complete a free Green for Business programme from the Local Enterprise Offices as a first step in receiving the EEG. This enables a business to receive advice and technical support on resource efficiency, how to better understand their carbon footprint, and how to implement an environmental management system to reduce costs and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Actions identified in this first step can then be implemented through the EEG funding.

The tables below set out that 35 clients were approved for the Energy Efficiency Grant since its launch in May 2023, to the sum of €137,423.31. There were over 550 approvals for Green for Business in 2023, indicating a strong pipeline of businesses that can avail of the Energy Efficiency Grant in 2024.

Energy Efficiency Grant - 01.01.2023 to 31.12.2023

Energy Efficiency Grant - 01.01.2024 to date.