Written answers
Tuesday, 11 July 2023
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Enterprise Policy
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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241. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the cost of increasing the funding for the Green For Micro Programme by 10%, 20%, and 25% [34326/23]
Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Local Enterprise Office Green for Micro programme is a free programme that assists micro enterprises by providing access to two days of intensive mentoring including a sustainability audit and action plan.
This programme will help businesses in preparing for the low carbon, more resource efficient economy of the future, helping them to take the first step towards becoming more sustainable.
Funding allocated under the Department's A8 subhead includes a capital allocation for LEO financial grant assistance and also for management training and development, mentoring, consultancy and entrepreneurship education programmes, including the Green for Micro programme. The funding is subsequently allocated to each of the 31 LEOs based on their Local Authority banding.
Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs agree the distribution of the budget across each of the different programmes based on previous and projected demand. At the end of each year the LEOs report their total outturn under each measure and in 2022 the LEO network provided €495k for the Green for Micro Programme.
The table below indicates the estimated increased budget for the Lean Programme, based on 2022 outturn:
| € | 10% | 20% | 25% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 Green for Micro expenditure | 495k | 544.6k | 594.1k | 618.9k |
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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242. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the cost of increasing the funding for the Green Start Programme by 10%, 20%, and 25%. [34327/23]
Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Green Start Programme is currently a component offer of the Green Transition Fund (GTF). The GTF is funded through the EU's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) on a multi-annual basis . A total funding requirement of €55 million has been allocated through 2022 – 2026 under my Department's estimates and in accordance with the National Development Plan.
From the commencement of the GTF in June 2022, up to 30 June 2023, there have been €395,000 in approvals for the Green Start component.The amount of approvals is based on client interest in the programme and can increase or decrease based on this interest.
To increase those approvals figure by 10%, 20%, and 25% hypothetically would cost an extra €39,500, €79,000 and €98,750 respectively.
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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243. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the cost of increasing the Innovation Voucher Scheme to €10,000. [34328/23]
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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244. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the cost of increasing funding for the innovation voucher scheme by 50%. [34329/23]
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 243 and 244 together.
The Innovation Voucher Programme is funded by my Department, through Enterprise Ireland.
The Innovation Voucher Programme provides €5,000 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.
The Innovation Voucher Programme budget outturn for 2022 was €1,898,526 which comes from capital expenditure. Based on the 2022 outturn data, a doubling of the value of innovation vouchers to €10,000 could increase the expenditure in the region of €3,797,052.It should be noted that this is very much a basic estimation as it cannot account for companies applying for potentially fewer vouchers of €10,000 rather than multiple vouchers of €5,000.
It should also be noted that the data on innovation vouchers is collated on the basis of when the voucher was redeemed, rather than the date of issue. Therefore, doubling or 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 vouchers are not cash grants, but are redeemed with a Research Performing Organisation, such as a Technological University, by the company for a specific project.
If the overall funding for the voucher was increased by 50%; based on the figure of €1,898,526for the budget outturn in 2022, the cost of the increase would be €949,263, giving a total cost for the programme of€2,847,789.
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