Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Collins for his question and particularly his support for the local enterprise offices throughout the country. They have played a very important role in our economic recovery, as the Deputy knows. In my role as Minister of State with responsibility for small business, I am in the process of visiting many of the LEOs throughout the country. I will be in Donegal next Monday to visit the LEO there and to visit some of the companies that benefit from funding from the local enterprise offices. I can name the companies that got money from the €1 million. It was divided among companies that had projects ready to go. I visited the LEO in Fingal last night which also got additional funding from that second tranche of funding. The LEOs in Fingal are doing a really good job under the management there. The LEOs that got the additional funding were Carlow, which got €40,000; Cork city, which got €50,000; Donegal, which got €100,000; Dublin city, which got €100,000; Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, which got €60,000; Fingal, which got €120,000; Kerry, which got €20,000; Kildare, which got €100,000; Limerick, the Deputy's county, which got €50,000; Mayo, which got €30,000; Sligo, €85,000; Tipperary, which got €170,000; Westmeath, which got €75,000; and Wexford, which got €69,500. As I said, all those companies were ready with projects that would create jobs. In total in 2015, LEOs created more than 3,533 jobs, and having that €1 million now for those additional projects that are ready to run will create a further number of jobs. We are very happy with the performance of the LEOs. With the additional funding of €4 million in 2017 we intend to make sure the LEOs grow further and create more jobs. The recovery has to spread into all regions, which is the idea behind having a local enterprise office working in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland and having finance, advice and other services available. They are an area that is very important to every region and to every county.