Fianna Fáil Senator Malcolm Byrne has said the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation needs to radically increase resources and funding available to Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) so that they can administer their schemes to businesses who need them.
Senator Byrne was commenting as information from the Department shows that of the 14,719 applications submitted to the LEO Business Continuity Voucher Scheme just 7,073 were successful to date. There were 3,570 applications submitted to the LEO Trading Online Voucher Scheme with just 1,570 approved so far.
He explained, “The Department need to confirm whether the remaining applications were rejected or whether they still have not been processed. If it’s a case that they haven’t been processed, then we need to see more resources being deployed to help LEOs cope with the number of applications and clear the backlog.
“If it’s a case that these applications have been rejected then there needs to be a re-think as to the criteria of the scheme.
“All across Ireland, small businesses have been actively encouraged to get their businesses online to enable them to keep something coming in while their doors have been shut. Evidently a huge number of them have embraced this and tried to apply for the Trading Online Voucher Scheme but the majority of them haven’t been successful yet.
“Likewise, with the Business Continuity Voucher Scheme, which is now closed, it was specifically designed to provide support to businesses to allow them to keep operating. 7,676 businesses which applied to it either haven’t been successful or haven’t had their applications assessed yet.
“Given that we’re entering he phased reopening of the country it really would have been more beneficial for these businesses to access these schemes early on when their doors were shut.