Government funding of €55m to help businesses move away from fossil fuels

The Government is to make €55m available to businesses to help them move away from the use of fossil fuels.

The new Green Transition Fund, to be launched later, will be made up of two parts.

The Climate Planning Fund for Business, worth €25m, will provide firms with funding to help them plan how they can reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

A grant of €1,800 will be provided for the development of the plan while up to €50,000 will be granted to help with capacity building within a business.

The second part, worth €30m, will be the Enterprise Emissions Reduction Investment Fund.

It will give manufacturing businesses who are clients of Enterprise Ireland, Údarás na Gaeltachta and IDA Ireland between €20,000 and €1m to invest in decarbonisation technologies.

Between €5,000 and €50,000 will be available to firms to assist with smart metering and energy monitoring.

Grants of up to €250,000 will also be available for research and development by IDA client companies.

The funding will be officially launched by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar and Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity Senator Pippa Hackett later.

"Putin's war on Ukraine has highlighted the vulnerability of becoming too reliant on finite resources controlled by other states," Mr Varadkar said.

"We need to help Irish businesses now prepare for a future where economic growth and fossil fuels are not intertwined. This Fund is an important help."

The programme, which will run over five years, is part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan funded by the EU.

Reporting: RTE News