What specific measures are the Minister's Department and Enterprise Ireland undertaking to ensure that SMEs in Ireland stay up to date with advancements in AI and digital technologies as they grow at a rapid rate? Local enterprise offices, LEOs, have been very good at giving grants to small companies but what I am talking about are mid-range SMEs that would like to get involved with Enterprise Ireland but sometimes struggle to do so. What steps can we take this calendar year and next year as we look forward? These changes in our society are huge. Rapid improvements are being made and we need to get them into our companies to ensure that we stay in touch with technologies and companies from outside Ireland.

I thank Deputy Neville for raising this very important issue and for the work he is doing for the enterprise sector to ensure rewards for enterprise are very much embedded in our economy. A number of offers are currently going through Enterprise Ireland. We have doubled the value of the innovation voucher, which is a huge assistance with tertiary education. It provides for a great deal of the commercialisation of research that can be seen taking place in our economy. The grow digital voucher offers up to €5,000 for smaller businesses. To support them, we also have bespoke schemes offered by Enterprise Ireland for cybersecurity, business consultancy and process innovation. These allow businesses to see how bringing in artificial intelligence can result in greater productivity and, critically, allow workers to work on other areas, focusing on growing business and bringing more revenue streams into the economy.

We have seen record growth among Enterprise Ireland companies this year. Exports were worth €36 billion, which is something never heard of before. We want to continue that growth, add 75,000 additional jobs over the next five years and see growth in research, development and innovation, where the tax credit will help. We are aiming to bring approximately €2 billion into the economy through Enterprise Ireland high-value jobs and continued exports. I will work with the Deputy to help companies to start growing in scale through the schemes we have over the coming years.