We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
THE DEPARTMENT OF finance has released details of a €375 million plan to help struggling small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The details of the plan are contained in a breakdown of the spend that will be allotted to the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), published yesterday.
The plan will particularly target an increase in equity funding for SMEs, with private sector partners Better Capital, Cardinal Capital and BlueBay also committing funds.
Cardinal Capital has already kicked off its investment activity, sinking a reported €15 million into Lily O’Briens chocolates in January.
Legislation to establish the ISIF, which has an overall war chest of €6.8 billion, was put forward by finance minister Michael Noonan yesterday.
Launching the fund, Noonan said: “The ISIF is open for business and is exploring and making investments that meet its dual mandate of investment return and economic impact.”
The same legislation puts NewEra on a statutory footing and establishes a legal costs unit to advise on costs arising out of the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals.
Outside of the targeted package for SMEs, two separate $100 million funds (€73 million) will make investments in high potential tech start ups and companies that have a substantial presence or strategic interest in China.
The Silicon Valley Bank and China Investment Corporation will partner the government on these funds.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Christ lads, the money is flowing in every direction now pre-election.
That’s worth about 3 euro 75 cents once you apply the post-election conversion rate.
Too late foe me minister….I closed my doors last February. Perhaps you might contact me about how I might access funds to reopen? No? Thought so.
Thats terrible George sorry to hear that. I wish you luck and happiness and better things for future.
Sorry to hear that.
I’m dizzy from all the spin
Government are worried big time about the 23rd. Now every go and vote tick one box as long as it’s not fg or labour send these parties a strong message
Or ff
True
So no voting for FG, FF or Lab? Sinn Fein then? May God have mercy on us all…
A bit like his plan for restructuring home-loans, by issuing eviction notices.
Sound more like an €375 million injection directly into the veins of Denis O’Brien’s companies Yoda.
There must be an election coming up with all these pork pies the Government are coming out with.The money must be back growing in the trees again.
Cash pile or pile of s*ite talk ?!?
Good news story of the day and accompanying photo of government minister…..check.
And the pre election fluff continues.
The real Noonan story today hasn’t been covered here yet. Changes to the USC are going to cost families up to €700 per year and will hit OAPs hard as well. Oh, and high earning self employed people will pay LESS USC under the changes.
C’mon thejournal, surely thats newsworthy??
What changes to the USC?
https://twitter.com/Independent_ie/status/467085463321583616/photo/1
I don’t thi9nk I’m allowed link to the indo itself, but here’s the gist:
“Hundreds of thousands of pensioners and families with medical cards are facing a sneaky tax hike – while high-earning self-employed people will enjoy a tax cut.The increase of as much as €700 a year for a single-income family on €40,000 a year will come as a result of a huge jump in the amount of universal social charge (USC) paid by up to 360,000 people….. The people affected will be charged 7pc from next January. At the same time high-earning self-employed people such as barristers, consultants, solicitors and business owners who earn more than €100,000 will benefit from a cut in their USC rate from 10pc to 7pc.”
We’d all better become high earning self-employed people so. Sounds like a path that should be promoted.
Were Jammin surprised to see you quoting the Indo – thought you despised and rubbished them after all the Sinn Fein fact checking they’ve been publishing re party finances etc. Cherrypicking your world view to suit your agenda??
From now, for a lot of people in Europe, bar Germany, the good paying Jobs are going to be ones that you create for yourself.
The world has changed too much, no economic model or ideology can compensate for these changes in a meaningful way.
Of course he is. Yeah. Right. After all Pat ‘Jabar the Hut’ Rabbitte blew the gaff on promises made at election time! All lies!
€375 million cash injection for the life blood of this country.
€80 billion cash injection for the guys who feed off this life blood
Wellllllllllll folks EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElectiooooooooooon time.
Told you before Noonan, Irish people dont believe you or any of your useless muppets, you time is fast coming to an end, get in as much free travel as possible coz its going to be Ryanair for you all the way,thats the best advice I can give you.
Wonder what other wonderful announcements this doomed government is going to come up with?
They play with our money as if it’s their own personal campaign chest. Shameless bunch of feckless gobshi*es. Spin spin spin…
Wow, they wait until the SME sector is scraping the barrel and so many have gone to the wall due to fake banks.
Resulting unemployment has hit every town & village in Ireland.
But, with 7 days to go until the local government and European parliament elections, they suddenly “care” about us?
Sadly, some will fall for this Fine Gael nonsense. The rest of us are living in the real world and voting Sinn Féin NUMBER ONE across the board.
Fine Gael & Fianna Fáil have hoodwinked us for decades. Change is a four letter word – VOTE.
Use it, make it count & let them know that we are no fools
You are so right David, they couldn’t care less about us! Just imagine the red tape and hoops we’d have to jump through for “viable” (their favourite word) business’s to even get a cent of this money. Cut the red tape and hoop jumping and stop treating us like we are asking for something for nothing, we’d be paying it back for god’s sake. Why isn’t there a Minister for small business? Perhaps that’s because there’s no one in Government with a real clue how we work!
Noonenn — our children first Please
It is in readable to think our politicians gave the GAA in Cork another €30million this month, also the banks who taxpayers bailed out spend our money sponsoring sports like Professional Rugby, Golf, Sailing, Tennis etc. our kids are hungry and homeless and nobody cares. Not 1 politician objected to millions being given to leisure activities while families suffer. Shame on all politicians.
What was it George Bush said. Fool me once shame on you.Fool me twice shame on me. This would have been great news two Years ago. Bit late now,not that I believe it’ll happen at all.
Actually his version was something along the lines of “mumble mumble fool me…can’t get fooled again”
Well done Mr. Noonan. Another positive investment in the local economy. Proving FG are pro enterprise, pro jobs.
Terrible news for the shinners. But that makes ne smile.
Im voting FG all the way.
Sinn Fein are the party of negative politics. They are still waiting for the second bailout. Good news like this destroys their message.
“I’m voting FG all the way” well done Seb as if you were ever going to vote any other way considering you promote FG policy at every opportunity.
Richard Bruton if we all recall promised a similar scheme for smes a few years ago. But it got caught up in red tape when the government failed to choose a tender package. Same old bs same old bs’ers….
I’d hate to hear the government release bad news if this is the reaction to a bit of positive action…
Haha Ross,,,,,its SPIN. Not news
This election is relatively meaningless. 2016 General Election is the important one.
I agree john. It will be interesting to see results. But it’s only a midterm snapshot.
Make no mistake. The big one is the next general election.
John, were you sick of being heckled from your stupid comments on an another article that you thought you’d start a new thread on this article,,
Well done on winning the two trophies for ‘completely missing the point’ and ‘lame comeback of the week’!!
Seb is also answering for John on other threads I wonder why that is?
More wasted money that we dont have.
Gilmore has to pull the plug or the Labour Party will be gone for all time. I can’t see the party faithful letting this happen kenny has made them look like fools Gilmore is his judas goat
Money available all over the shop! They must have found SF’s money tree!
Do these imbeciles actually think we believe this pre-election fraudulent tripe anymore ? Hows that 5 point plan coming along Mr. Noonan ? Hows that “your way or no way” working out M.Gilmore ?, bunch of delinquent treasonous rapacious pigs .
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say