I want to raise the power up grant for small business, which was part of budget 2025 for the retail and hospitality sector. Some €170 million was made available with €4,000 per business. I and other members of the Regional Group are finding that certain businesses are unable to avail of this grant for the simple reason that they did not qualify for the increased cost of business support grant that was there previously. Therefore, some businesses are being treated one way and others are being treated in another way. There is no equality in this. The deadline for applications is this Friday. As one gesture to small business, the Taoiseach might extend the deadline and he might ensure that the instruction goes out to every local authority to allow people who have not previously got a grant to apply for the grant now. We are talking about small business and about people who thought that this was great news but when one goes into detail, one finds that some people do not qualify. In view of the fact that the Government has not reduced the VAT rate for small businesses, this was the Government's answer. Please ensure that this grant gets to everybody.

I thank Deputy Canney for raising this matter. We had an update from the Minister, Deputy Burke, at the Cabinet today. I do not have the figures in front of me but from looking through the table, local authority by local authority, it looks to me that around 60% of those eligible so far have applied for the grant. We will certainly keep under review the deadline for that grant. I think it is some 60%-odd of people who are eligible.

The first point the Deputy is making is the bigger point that there are some businesses which did not qualify and were perhaps not able, for a variety of reasons, to get the increased cost of business grant, and he asks that scheme be expanded to include them. That is something that the Minister is giving active consideration to. It has been raised and discussed amongst Government parties. I will raise it directly with the Minister, Deputy Burke, now that Deputy Canney has brought it to my attention and I will ask that he comes back to the Deputy on it.