Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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544.To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the estimated cost of increasing the disruptive technology fund by 5%, 10%, 20%, 25% and 50%, in tabular form. [31179/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF) is one of four National Development Plan (NDP) 2018-2027 Funds under Project Ireland 2040. €500 million has been invested through the Fund up to 2027 for co-funded collaborative projects. It is aimed at encouraging collaboration and innovation in the development and deployment of disruptive technologies, on a commercial basis, targeted at tackling national and global challenges. It is managed by my Department and administered by Enterprise Ireland.

In the first six DTIF Calls to date, €371 million has been allocated to 104 projects involving collaborative partnerships between industry, especially SMEs, and public research bodies in applying industrial research under the six themes of the revised Research Priority Areas, in areas such as Health and Wellbeing, Energy and Climate action, Food, ICT and Advanced and Smart Manufacturing.

DTIF projects are awarded funding based on merit, making the amount of funding allocated from the DTIF specific to each Call and is subject to the number and quality of the applications received.

I launched a seventh DTIF Call in May and consortia can submit applications at any stage from now to the deadline on 30 April 2025.

The cost of increasing the NDP Fund for DTIF by the percentages asked is set out in the table below.