Grant eligibility anomalies
Deputy Stanton highlighted anomalies in the power up grant and solar-panel supports affecting tenants and applicants with mistakes in forms. The Taoiseach said he would ask the Minister to examine the schemes and consider tweaks.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment administers some very good grants, of which the power up grant is one. I support Deputy Canney who spoke about anomalies in the system. There is one in particular where if the business is a tenant and pays the rates to the landlord to pass on to the local authority, nobody can qualify for the grant. In addition, if people had already registered under the increased cost-of-business grant and made a mistake, they cannot rectify that. The algorithms will not allow it to happen. The same thing applies with solar panels. If it is a tenant and landlord relationship, an application cannot be made. There are a number of anomalies. The Minister, Deputy Burke, is working hard to correct them, but it would be great if that could be done sooner rather than later. The deadline is very tight.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy for raising the anomalies or the need to maybe tweak the power up grant and grants and funding around solar panels. This is something I will speak directly to the Minister about, but he is aware of it. In years gone by, we allocated a lot of funding to support small businesses. Sometimes it has even been hard to get all that funding drawn down because of the rigidity of schemes. We do not want that to happen with this so I will certainly ask the Minister to take a look at both the points the Deputy raised.