Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke is set to instruct all agencies under his remit to remove unnecessary administrative burden as part of a wider government push to streamline public services and improve efficiency for businesses.
The move comes as the Coalition intensifies efforts to reduce bureaucratic processes across departments, with a renewed focus on digitalisation and faster delivery of state supports. Agencies will be encouraged in the coming weeks to simplify procedures and adopt more efficient systems for handling applications and grants.
At the centre of the initiative is a cross-government “red tape challenge” coordinated by the Department of Enterprise. The programme is aimed at identifying outdated administrative requirements and replacing them with simplified, digital-first processes designed to reduce delays for businesses.
As part of the reforms, Mr Burke has already overseen a review of the most commonly accessed Local Enterprise Office grant schemes. That review has led to a reduction of application length by as much as 50% in some cases. Similar changes are now being implemented within Enterprise Ireland, where officials are targeting a 24-hour turnaround time for small grant applications.
A key feature of the reforms is the introduction of a “once only” principle, under which businesses will not be required to repeatedly submit the same information across different schemes. Instead, data provided in one application will be reused across multiple supports, reducing duplication and administrative workload.
Officials are also working to merge application systems across different funding streams, particularly for smaller grants where proportionality will be applied to reduce compliance demands on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Mr Burke said the changes are intended to support entrepreneurship and remove barriers that slow down business activity. “These enterprises are the backbone of our economy, and time spent navigating bureaucracy is time lost to running their businesses, to innovation and to job creation,” he said. He added that the current level of administrative burden is having a wider economic impact and that reform is urgently needed.
The Department of Enterprise said the simplification programme will continue to expand across agencies in the coming months, with further measures expected to focus on digital processing, standardised application forms and reduced documentation requirements.
The reforms are also expected to feature in wider EU-level discussions on competitiveness. Simplification measures are likely to be raised at the Competitiveness Council during Ireland’s involvement in upcoming European Union presidency-related engagements.
Government officials say the initiative reflects a broader shift toward modernising public administration and improving the ease of doing business, particularly for smaller firms that often lack the resources to manage complex application processes.
