Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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541.To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the estimated cost of increasing funding for the innovation voucher scheme by 50% and 100%, in tabular form. [31176/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Innovation Voucher Programme is funded by my Department, though Enterprise Ireland. The Programme is designed to build links between Ireland's public knowledge providers (higher education institutions and research performing bodies) and small businesses and help to create a cultural shift in the small business community's approach to innovation.

The recently increased €10,000 vouchers encourage companies and public knowledge providers to work together on specific innovation questions and projects related to a company’s needs and is available to the broadest number of companies. The nature of these projects will be such that they transfer knowledge that is new, thereby enabling a company to use this newly acquired knowledge to innovate a product, production process or service.

The Innovation Voucher Programme outturn for 2023 was €1,641,000. Data on innovation vouchers is collated on the basis of the time of redemption of the voucher, rather than the date of issue. Therefore, increasing the budget for innovation vouchers will only have impact if the companies have projects to this value and will only be counted on redemption of the vouchers.

The table below shows the cost of increasing this funding by 50% and 100% and the total expenditure inclusive of the differing rates of increase.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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542.To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the estimated cost of cost of increasing the innovation voucher scheme to €12,000. [31177/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Innovation Voucher Programme is funded by my Department, through Enterprise Ireland. It provides vouchers to encourage companies and public knowledge providers to work together on specific innovation questions and projects related to a company’s needs. The nature of these projects will be such that they transfer knowledge that is new, thereby enabling a company to use this newly acquired knowledge to innovate a product, production process or service.

On 1 July 2024 the value of the Innovation Vouchers doubled from €5,000 to €10,000 per voucher.

The Innovation Voucher Programme outturn for 2023 was €1,641,000. Based on the 2023 outturn data, the cost of increasing the value of innovation vouchers to €12,000 could increase the expenditure by approximately €2,297,400 (based on a 140% increase in value of the voucher from €5,000 to €12,000). This is however a high-level estimation as it cannot account for companies applying for potentially fewer vouchers of €12,000 rather than multiple vouchers of €5,000, or the new €10,000 vouchers.

If the overall funding for the voucher was increased by 140%; based on the 2023 outturn figure, the total cost for the programme is estimated at €3,938,400.

The data on innovation vouchers is collated based on when the voucher was redeemed, rather than the date of issue. Therefore, increasing the budget for innovation vouchers will only have impact if the companies have projects to this value and will only be counted on redemption of the vouchers with a Research Performing Organisation, such as a Technological University,