Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives and it is good to have them here. I congratulate Ms. Sinnamon on a great year and I particularly congratulate her on female entrepreneurship. It is good to see and it is very encouraging. I wish to ask Mr. Tom Hayes about the LEOs in regard to the community enterprise offices and to relate this to the position in local offices in Cork. The local county councils have set up enterprise offices in various towns and they are struggling in rural areas because there is no one there to promote them. The package was that they would fit them out and set them up and that the community had to run them on a voluntary basis, which is very challenging. I suggest that something should be tied in with the LEOs where somebody would call to the local areas.

There should be some collaboration between Enterprise Ireland, local enterprise offices and Cork County Council to make these offices work. Otherwise some of them will become white elephants, which would be a shame. I understand they are specific to County Cork and I am not sure they operate in other counties. There are definitely eight or nine of them in rural towns in County Cork, including Charleville, Mill Street, Youghal and Mitchelstown.