13. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on the recently launched business energy upgrade scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21239/25]

Sentiment score: 0.22

In light of recent utility price volatility, global economic uncertainty, trade wars and the threat of tariffs, it was really good to see the business energy upgrade scheme launched in November. Now that it has been under way for five months, will the Minister of State give us an update on the uptake of the scheme, how it is working and whether public bodies are utilising it?

Sentiment score: -0.28

I thank the Minister of State. As someone who has spent my recent years advising SMEs, it is important to remember that a lot of them do not have the capacity to be continually checking what grants are open for application and navigating difficult processes, so it is important that we have a streamlined, efficient process. Will the Minister of State tell me how long it is taking to finalise and confirm draft applications? In the Department's view, is the scheme working or is there anything we can do to improve it? What can we do to improve the uptake of the scheme? While it is great that there are 200 applications, there are a lot more than 200 SMEs in this country. Are we appropriately advertising the scheme to make sure we are encouraging uptake to help support these SMEs with their energy costs at a time when they are particularly suffering with them?

Sentiment score: 0.47

I thank the Minister of State. As he said, it is important that we support our SMEs with their energy costs, and it is great that we have this scheme. It is important that we have a periodic review of the uptake of the scheme to make sure it was working. If the uptake is not increasing substantially, we need to look at how we are advertising that scheme and encouraging SMEs to take it up, as well as making sure that it is quick and efficient and that the timeline to approve the grant applications is actually appropriate.

Sentiment score: 0.65