Local SMEs entitled to grants under the Increased Cost of business (ICOB) and the Power Up grants launched in 2025.
Due to, what the Department of Enterprise is calling a ‘misclassification’ issue and what we call the usual negative attitude to SME funding, more than 6,000 small and medium enterprises were flatly refused funds or denied eligibility by the Department.
Now that the ‘misclassification’ or Big Cockup has been discovered, upwards of €40million grants are owed to SMEs.
To add insult to injury the SMEs involved must now go through an ‘appeals process’ to be administered by the local authorities. We have been told that this ‘appeals process’ will open, in the usual civil service lingo, ‘as soon as possible’.
Under the ICOB grant SMEs were entitled to a proportion of their 2023 commercial rates refunded as a grant. The Power Up grant gave €4,000 to businesses in some sectors.
Watch out for notifications from your Local Authority, which we expect ‘as soon as possible’.
MF 23/06/25.
