Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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331. 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. [28817/25]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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332. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the estimated cost of cost of increasing the innovation voucher scheme to €12,000. [28818/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 331 and 332 together.

The Innovation Voucher Programme is funded by my Department, though Enterprise Ireland.

The current Innovation Voucher which doubled from €5,000 to €10,000 last year is a key measure 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 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 2024 was €2,467,312. Increasing the budget for innovation vouchers will only have impact when the vouchers are redeemed which may not be in the same year. It is also noted that the maximum value of the voucher is up to €10,000, therefore not every voucher issued will necessarily be for the full amount.

The table below shows the estimated cost of increasing the voucher value to €12,000, along with the total expenditure under scenarios where funding is increased by 50% and 100%.