Irish Government launches online search tool to support SMEs

19 May 2014

Leinster House in Dublin

Irish start-ups and SMEs can now navigate the range of Government business supports that may be available to them via a new online search tool Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, TD, launched today.

There are more than 80 of these Government business support systems in place, totalling more than €2bn. However, a specially commissioned survey of nearly 2,000 SMEs has found a real lack of awareness of these supports, with 98pc of respondents admitting they had little knowledge of public supports available to them.

Enter the Supporting SMEs online tool developed by pTools, an Irish SME that specialises in web content-management software.

By answering eight questions on the website, an SME can find out which of the Government business supports from 27 departments, agencies and initiatives are available to them, receive information on the range of Government supports for accessing credit, pinpoint their nearest Local Enterprise Office, and download all these filtered results into a document for further use.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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