Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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70. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 249 and 258 of 23 January 2024, the current percentage of Irish SMEs that export services; if exporting by SMEs has increased, decreased, or remained the static since this Government came to office; if his Department has a target to increase SME exporting; if so, the target; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25735/24]

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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71. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 249 and 258 of 23 January 2024, to provide an update on the percentage of Irish SMEs currently exporting services and the domestic value added in Irish service exports from SMEs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25736/24]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 70 and 71 together.

To achieve sustainable, diversified growth, and enhanced economic resilience, it is vital that the Irish-owned enterprise sector fulfils its potential to scale and succeed on global markets.

The White Paper on Enterprise sets out an ambition for 2,000 additional Irish-owned exporters by 2030. To help achieve this ambition, Enterprise Ireland has a strategic priority of fostering an environment that nurtures entrepreneurship, supports the sustainable growth of Irish-owned firms and increases and diversifies Irish exports. In addition, the Local Enterprise Offices are working to help smaller prospective exporters to develop the required capacities.

Enterprise Ireland supports to exporting SMEs include direct financial assistance through grants, loans, and equity investments; Market Research and export development assistance; funding and mentoring for Innovation and Research; and facilitating international trade missions and market access opportunities.

The most recent figures illustrate that 2022 was a record year for Irish-owned business in terms of international sales. Companies supported by EI achieved export sales of €32.1 billion, an increase of 19% on the previous year, and growth occurred across all overseas regions and in individual industry sectors.

Work is underway to build a new exporter accelerator in Enterprise Ireland which will focus on building ambition, capability and market entry for potential first-time exporters to accelerate market entry and fast track more companies on the export journey. The new accelerator will work closely with the Local Enterprise Offices and will enable further progress with regard to the expansion of the LEO framework to extend direct financial assistance to small companies employing more than 10 and less than 50 employees in the manufacturing and internationally traded sectors with export potential.

Enterprise policy is supporting Irish companies in their growth into international markets by addressing barriers in access to finance and building stronger pipelines for company development through consistent agency support measures.

My Department does not collect data on the percentage of SMEs that export.

I have referred the Deputy's request for statistics relating to the percentage of SMEs that export services to the Central Statistics Office for further input.