Small and Medium Enterprises
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
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Peter Burke (FG), Longford-Westmeath

I thank Deputy McCormack for his concern. I will make a few points. First, in addition to the sustainability grants, digitalisation allows businesses to either grow their revenue or reduce their cost base. That is a key way to change the business model. The critical thing about a grant is that the business does not change its model, which potentially leads to an unsustainable pathway, so it has to be done every single year. Businesses can increase revenue or reduce costs. That is how they get on a winning path. We are trying to continue with that. Our National Enterprise Hub has 250 supports. I would encourage all SMEs to log onto that to get the details on the range of supports.
I would also point out that we have reduced the VAT rate on gas and electricity for SMEs, and we reduced the VAT rate on hospitality to 9% from 1 July. I am saying to businesses in the hospitality sector that that is 4.5% on their margins. I need 7% growth from them to ensure we get a very strong return of jobs and revenue back into the Exchequer.
We also did a huge amount of work with the low-cost loans, increasing the microfinance loan to €50,000 and doubling the investment innovation voucher to €10,000.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19