Approval to press on with €100m grant aid scheme

THE Government received formal approval from Brussels yesterday to press ahead with its €100 million grant aid scheme for struggling companies — as detailed by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan in last week’s emergency budget.

The new Enterprise Stabilisation Fund — to be overseen by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Enterprise Ireland — will grant aid of e500,000 to individual companies that have found themselves hamstrung by the economic downturn and lack of available credit.

The total e100m will cover two years, with e50m being doled out this year and the same in 2010.