Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 5 June 2014
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Access to Finance for SMEs: Discussion with Dublin Business and Innovation Centre.
11:40 am
Mr. Richard Watson:
We get many inquiries, but we must be selective with regard to the companies we work with. Some come to us too early. We have a programme called EnterpriseSTART2, which involves a focused session over one or two days. This deals with companies that have come too early to us for Enterprise Ireland or seed funding. We provide that kind of support for companies at an early stage. They may then go off and get funding from one of the county enterprise boards or may go on to one of the enterprise top form programmes Enterprise Ireland manages, the new frontiers programmes, and may come back to us a year later. We must focus on the companies we support.