Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The indigenous enterprise development agencies under my remit, Enterprise Ireland and the county enterprise boards, have a clear and unequivocal mandate to develop enterprise in all regions. As in the other regions, their activity in the midlands and western regions has been successful to date.

Enterprise Ireland has a wide range of programmes to address the multidisciplinary demands of entrepreneurship and the diversity of business types. For example, it supports companies to achieve productivity gains, internationalisation, export growth and achievement of scale. It assists with research and development, management skills acquisition, market information and seed and venture capital. It also address micro business with support for incubation space in communities. Enterprise Ireland works with almost 490 client companies in the west region which employ 11,693 people. In 2007, €14.8 million was approved by Enterprise Ireland for clients in the west region. In the midlands, Enterprise Ireland works with over 300 client companies which employ more than 9,900 people. In 2007 approvals for midlands clients was over €7.5 million.

The role of the county and city enterprise boards in the midland and western region is to provide a source of support for micro-enterprise in the start-up and expansion phases, to promote and develop indigenous micro-enterprise potential and to stimulate economic activity and entrepreneurship at local level. The specific types of formal CEB assistance available to micro-enterprise is broken down between financial assistance such as grants for feasibility studies, employment grants and capital grants and non-financial assistance such as programmes covering business management, mentoring, e-commerce, enterprise education and women in business networks.

During 2007 the midland region CEBs, composed of Longford, Westmeath, Laois and Offaly paid out over €1.48 million in grant assistance to 109 clients. This intervention has assisted in the creation of 236 jobs in the region. The CEBs in the western region, comprising Galway, Mayo and Roscommon have paid out over €1.11 million in grant assistance to 104 clients, which in turn, has enabled the creation of 328 jobs in the area.

During 2008 the CEBs in the midlands and western region will continue to support enterprise development through the provision of both direct financial assistance, in the form of capital, feasibility and employment grants, and through indirect or soft support assistance such as management development capability support and the development and delivery of activities to highlight and promote enterprise.

IDA Ireland is also supporting enterprise development in the region through its ongoing strategy of growing and embedding foreign direct investment activity. The agency is encouraging its client companies to add strategic functions to its Irish operations in areas such as research and development and marketing. There are opportunities here for indigenous companies in the areas of sub-supply and service provision.

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