Mr. Padraic McElwee:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the inviting us to this meeting to discuss this very important topic. I would like to be associated with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Clancy.

The local enterprise offices are the first-stop shop for any small business looking to start or grow access to business. The LEO vision is to develop and sustain a positive enterprise ecosystem at local level throughout the country that will drive new added-value start-ups, facilitate further growth of micro and small businesses and enhance local economies. The local enterprise offices were established in 2014, replacing the 35 county and city enterprise boards.

The local enterprise offices are located in all local authorities around the country. The LEOs are an integral part of each local authority and facilitate close collaboration with various supports and enablers delivered by the local government sector. From an economic perspective, local authorities play a critical role in putting in place initiatives to stimulate the local economy and to support business in creating employment. Never has this role been more critical than in the past two years. Local authorities work closely and in partnership with Departments and key State agencies to deliver on this promise.

As Mr. Clancy outlined, the integration with Enterprise Ireland is key to the success of the local enterprise office and ensures businesses of all sizes are assisted on their development journey from start-up to scaling. Our core collective objectives are to boost the productivity of established businesses and connect enterprises with innovation opportunities at home and internationally, maximising their growth and job creation potential.

In 2021 we saw our eighth consecutive year of strong job creation spread across the country. We financially support 7,158 companies operating in the manufacturing and internationally-traded service sector. They employ over 35,000 people spread among our towns, villages and rural communities with 85% of those jobs being located outside Dublin. In 2021, these businesses created 7,440 new jobs and we experienced net jobs growth of 3,000. During that period we also transferred 114 companies to Enterprise Ireland.

In 2021, we approved funding to 121 businesses of over €24 million. We trained over 60,000 entrepreneurs and owner-managers. Of those trained, just under 6,000 participated in our Start Your Own Business programme. We also supported over 14,149 business owners supported with one-to-one mentoring with people with specialist skills specific to the needs of that business. We play a key and increasing role in developing innovation and facilitated the approval of 27 projects under the Enterprise Ireland agile innovation fund. In the latter part of 2020, we supported 444 lean initiatives or interventions and 293 green consultancies.

Covid had a dramatic impact on microenterprises with many owner-managers finding themselves isolated and needing support more than ever. The local enterprise offices were on the front line of proactively assisting these businesses. This provided an invaluable lifeline throughout the pandemic.

We also play a key role in collaborating with various other bodies in our locality across numerous plans. Examples of this include local community development committees, local economic and community plans, regional enterprise action plans, regional skills fora and the regional enterprise development fund projects.

We also have established protocols with a number of agency partners that govern the dissemination of information, signposting and inter-organisation referrals. Local enterprise offices will continue to implement these protocols on an ongoing basis and review locally as required.

Our strategic ambitions in the years ahead are very much aligned with the recently-published Enterprise Ireland strategy outlined by Mr. Clancy. The overarching ambition is enhancing the capability and competitiveness of microenterprises to grow, develop and create employment. In particular, we will work closely with those enterprises that have a global ambition to ensure they have the supports and resources necessary to succeed in global markets. In numeric terms, we have a number of challenging targets that are outlined in our submission document. I would be happy to elaborate on them at a later point. Appendix 1 to the document submitted also outlines the range of supports we offer that will drive that growth.

The past two years have highlighted the key role LEOs play in supporting local businesses and the benefits of having local support for local business. During this period, many businesses faced loss of customers, uncertainty and potential loss of their livelihood. It was a challenging time on numerous fronts, including economically and at the personal level. We saw businesses open virtual doors when their physical ones had to shut using our trading online vouchers. We saw over 70,000 people avail of LEO training during the first year of the pandemic. This equipped them with the new skills required to sustain their business, be that selling online, social media, HR or financial skills. We saw thousands of businesses access mentors to rewrite their business plans and pivot their company. Sometimes this was to sustain it but in many cases we saw them grow and find new markets and opportunities. The figures from last year indicate many small businesses were able to bring back on board those jobs that were lost in 2020 and across the board we saw good growth. There are green shoots and the outlook for the future is positive. The Look for Local advertising campaign run by the LEOs played an important role in encouraging our communities to support their local businesses and ensure their continuing viability. It merits acknowledgment that communities responded positively to this call for support and in fact many discovered new treasures on their doorstep that will have a longer-term beneficial impact.

We should be very proud of Ireland’s small business community for what they had to endure in the past two years in the name of keeping the public safe. While some sectors remain challenged, many of those businesses have emerged stronger for the experiences they went through. The staff members of every local enterprise office take great pride in the role we played to help small businesses over the past two years and we will continue to do so in whatever way we can over the coming years. The ability and capacity for LEOs to proactively engage and support early-stage enterprises are fundamental to the future economic viability of our many towns and villages. We play a key development role in identifying and nurturing early-stage enterprises with the ambition to become world-class Irish companies and achieve leading positions in global markets. This focus highlights the important development role LEOs play in the wider economic development remit of the local authorities. LEO supports underpin economic activity, job creation, job retention and vibrant communities. Enterprise Ireland's strategy identifies the importance of the early-stage supports LEOs deliver and the platform this provides to achieve our shared vision of Irish businesses creating solutions for global challenges and delivering sustainable prosperity throughout Ireland. I thank the Chairman for this opportunity.