State Aid rules

Payments under the Road Transporter Support Scheme (RTSS) will be made in accordance with Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2381 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid (“the De Minimis Regulation”).

The Department is required to verify your entitlement to receive State Aid funding in line with Article 6(4) of the De Minimis Regulation. The Department may share your information with other Government Departments and/or Government Agencies, to ensure compliance with State Aid rules and/or national legislative requirements.

The Department will publish relevant information on each individual aid granted under the Scheme on the EU Commission’s De Minimis Register within 20 days from the moment of granting.

You will be required to make several declarations in relation to State Aid as part of the application process. Please ensure you read the following information carefully before you proceed to the application form.

The total RTSS payment for each qualifying application will be calculated based on the following:

The Scheme will operate in accordance with Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2381 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid (“the De Minimis Regulation”).

Aid under the De Minimis Regulation is limited to €300,000 per single entity, see next section for more detail, during a rolling three-year period. You will be asked to provide information on any De Minimis State Aid you have received within the previous three-years as part of your RTSS application.

If you fail to declare other De Minimis funding you have received in the last three years which results in you exceeding the €300,000 limit, the funding including payments under the RTSS will be recovered with interest.

The Department may seek further information from an applicant where required and may share your information with other Government Departments and/or Government Agencies to ensure compliance with State Aid rules.

Details of the following aid measures do not need to be notified in your application for the RTSS:

• the Licensed Haulage Support Scheme 2023.
• the Licensed Haulage Emergency Support Scheme 2022.
• the Diesel Rebate Scheme.
• the Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS); or
• the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS).

If you are unsure whether you received State Aid that needs to be reported to the Department for the purposes of this Scheme, please enter the details at the appropriate question in the application form. The Department will review the information and will contact you if further details are required.

You must only make one application for the RTSS for a single undertaking, see next section for more details. Separate applications for a single undertaking, or separate applications in respect of the same vehicles, may result in all such applications being rejected.

Several separate legal entities may be considered to form one economic unit, referred to as a single undertaking, for the purposes of the application of State Aid rules. The European Court of Justice considers the existence of a controlling share and other functional, economic and organic links to be relevant.

An undertaking is defined as any entity engaged in an economic activity, regardless of its legal status and the way in which it is financed. All entities which are controlled (on a legal or on a de facto basis) by the same entity should be considered as a single undertaking.

A single undertaking includes all enterprises having at least one of the following relationships with each other:

a) one enterprise has a majority of the shareholders’ or members’ voting rights in another enterprise;

b) one enterprise has the right to appoint or remove a majority of the members of the administrative, management or supervisory body of another enterprise;

c) one enterprise has the right to exercise a dominant influence over another enterprise pursuant to a contract entered into with that enterprise or to a provision in its memorandum or articles of association;

d) one enterprise, which is a shareholder in or member of another enterprise, controls alone, pursuant to an agreement with other shareholders in or members of that enterprise, a majority of shareholders’ or members’ voting rights in that enterprise.

Enterprises having any of the relationships referred to in points (a) to (d) above through one or more other enterprises shall also be considered to be a single undertaking.

The Department will be required to publish relevant information on each individual aid granted under the Scheme on the EU Commission’s De Minimis Register within 20 days from the moment of granting, as per Article 6 of Commission Regulation (EU) No 2023/2831. The following information will be published:

• the name of the beneficiary (i.e. the single undertaking).
• the total amount of aid.
• the granting date.
• the granting authority.
• the aid instrument.
• the sector involved on the basis of the statistical classification of economic activities in the Union (‘NACE classification’).

Details contained in applications and supporting documents may, be released to third parties in response to legitimate requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

You will be consulted before a decision is made on whether to release the information should a request to release sensitive information be received.

The Department reserves the right to carry out an audit of expenditure or conduct inspections from time to time. In addition, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General reserves the right to inspect documentation as per conditions in D/PER Circular 13/2014.