Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

The county enterprise boards are at the coal face of small enterprise development throughout the State. They have a great knowledge of entrepreneurs living in their area and are extremely successful. Their focus, ethos and accessibility would be reduced if they were amalgamated with the local authorities and I would urge the Minister not to become involved in that. Instead, I urge him to reinforce investment in the county enterprise structure.

We have a fine Deputy from Meath here today, but, unfortunately, Meath does not get the same level of investment from the IDA and Enterprise Ireland as other counties. I urge the Minister to take that into consideration in future when developing policy with regard to these organisations. Will the Minister of State consider implementing a State-wide programme for exporting for small businesses with under ten employees and include that in enterprise boards?

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