Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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279. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for an update on changes of funding eligibility for digital grants and consultancy to ensure more simplified, accessible, and broadly available funding supports for digitalisation for businesses; how many more businesses will qualify; the financial value of the proposed funding eligibility changes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42431/24]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The National Digital Strategy, Harnessing Digital, led by the Department of the Taoiseach, sets out this Governments commitment to Digital Transformation. This commitment is reflected in the White Paper on Enterprise which includes Placing Digital Transformation at the Heart of Enterprise Policy as one of the 7 key policy objectives.

My Department and our enterprise agencies continue to act as advocates for digital transformation. We are committed to accelerating the adoption of digital technologies across enterprise through capital grants, training and consultancy. For small businesses in particular, digitalisation can unlock new markets and customers, free up valuable time for business owners, and provide valuable data to help inform decision making.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that my department has introduced a number of improvements to the Local Enterprise Office digital business supports ensuring that more businesses can benefit.

The Digital for Business programme has been opened up to businesses with up to 50 employees across all sectors. This programme provides small businesses with free consultancy from a digital expert to help small businesses prepare and implement a plan for the adoption of digital tools and techniques across the business.

Secondly, last month, the Grow Digital Voucher was launched. Under this new offer, the funding available has been increased to up to €5,000 and the eligibility criteria expanded to cover a wider range of digital interventions available to a broader range of businesses as compared to the Trading Online Voucher. Eligible expenditure has been modernised to include a wide variety of digital interventions, to support businesses on their digitalisation journey, and includes a wide range of elements such as e-commerce software, e-invoicing software, cyber security software, as well as analytics software including Artificial Intelligence systems.

CSO data suggests that there are over 20,000 enterprises in the State that employ between 10 to 49 people, that could avail of these supports. In Budget 2025 I have secured funding for Grow Digital to make it available to small businesses regardless of sector and funding for the free Digital for Business consultancy.

My Department is committed to driving increased adoption of technology among businesses, and views digitalisation as one of the most effective levers to narrow the productivity gap between multinational corporations and the indigenous SME sector. To assist these efforts, I recently launched the Grow Digital Portal which is a new free service that allows businesses to self-assess their digital capability and receive a scorecard identifying solutions to drive efficiencies. The launch of Grow Digital Portal is a key deliverable under the National Digital Strategy, to help achieve the targets of 90% of SMEs having at least basic digital intensity, and at least 75% take-up of AI, Cloud, and Data Analytics by 2030.

To further assist any businesses in identifying the supports available to them, in July I launched The National Enterprise Hub (NEH), which provides business owners with an easy entry point to the wide enterprise supports eco-system. The National Enterprise Hub provides a centralised signposting service for over 180 Government supports in areas such as decarbonisation, digitalisation, skills development and innovation.

To date, the National Enterprise Hub has attracted over 58,000 active users to its site and engaged with over 1,200 companies.