Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The new structure of local enterprise offices, LEOs, will build on the significant work done by the county enterprise boards to date. It will be achieved through the dissolution of the existing CEBs and the creation of a new micro enterprise and small business unit within Enterprise Ireland that will work with the local authorities to establish a local enterprise office in each local authority. The local enterprise offices will be staffed with a combination of local authority and CEB officials. The precise HR arrangements will be finalised as the process moves forward.

The aim of the proposal is to enhance the State services to small business at local level by delivering a one-stop-shop for small business; establishing a more integrated network between local and national enterprise support which will ensure high standards, uniformly delivered to benchmarked standards of best practice; offering a seamless service for small companies to take up the wider range of Enterprise Ireland programmes for companies with rapid growth potential; simplifying the structures that small businesses have to deal with; enlisting the local authorities into a more active role in small business support and local economic development; and encouraging innovative approaches to support small business.

In conjunction with the dissolution of the CEB legal structure, Enterprise Ireland and the local authorities will be tasked with the practicalities of setting up and rolling out a local enterprise office structure. There is clearly a lot of detailed developmental work to be done over the coming months to effect these changes and to put appropriate new structures in place. I will shortly establish a steering group chaired by my Department which will move this process forward and address all of the relevant issues. Clearly, it is essential that all relevant parties continue to work together to bring about this positive change as a priority and that the continuity of a high level of service to the micro-enterprise sector is preserved in the transition phase.

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