John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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137. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to provide an update on the expected timeline for finalisation and publication of the planned Scaling for Finance Implementation Plan; the issues to be addressed in the plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55924/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Finance for Scaling Implementation Strategy is currently being finalised and Minister Burke expects to bring this to Government shortly, after which it is expected to be published.

The Strategy is a key milestone of the Department's ongoing work to implement the recommendations of the Report: "The use of finance as a catalyst to develop a scaling ecosystem", which was published in July 2024.

That Report identified a suboptimal market for capital to finance enterprises at scale-up stages and recommended that both the size of available capital be increased and the quality of the scale-up financing ecosystem in Ireland be enhanced with new policy measures. Specifically, the Report made high-level recommendations to (i) provide more State capital (ii) incentivise private capital to invest more at the scaling stage and (iii) review taxation to incentivise founders and investors to grow businesses. Those recommendations required further work to be developed into concrete proposals for action.

To realise these recommendations into concrete actions, the Finance for Scaling Implementation Working Group was established under the direction of a High-Level Oversight Group and informed by both an Expert Advisory Panel and an independent quantitative market study.

This market study commissioned by the Department and published in July 2025: “Market Demand for and Supply of Scaling Finance in Ireland” was undertaken by SQW Economic Research Consultants who conducted a market analysis to define and quantify the scaling finance gap. The findings of this study along with the wider policy context are expected to be included in the Strategy.

For the market to deliver effective outcomes for Ireland’s Scale-up firms, the Finance for Scaling Implementation Strategy is expected to describe a two-phased approach, with immediate market interventions to provide capital to the market initially. It is also expected to outline the continuance of the work to investigate and develop policy actions to incentivise private capital to invest more at the scaling stage.