Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 11 together.

My Department tracks the agency supported enterprises in regional towns and their hinterlands. Our agencies have regional offices who seek to promote the assets of the region and develop their enterprises. Forfás has conducted research on the regional strengths and weaknesses’ from an enterprise perspective. However, most of our policy tools are enterprise focused and sector focused rather than taking regional towns as their starting point.

In 2014, we are seeking to enhance local enterprise support by the roll-out of the local enterprise offices, LEOs. They will deliver a first-stop shop point of access and specific support to the development of regional towns. They also include the local enterprise support services of the local authorities and will publish a local enterprise plan.

The aim of Action Plan for Jobs is to support enterprises to create employment throughout the country and in all regions. Regions that support strong and dynamic enterprises are crucial to Ireland’s return to overall economic growth. The action plan contains a number of actions to strengthen enterprise development at the regional level. Action 177 mandates my Department and its agencies to develop a framework for a regional enterprise strategy to better integrate and develop new ways of working, further collaborations and enhance the efforts and activities of the enterprise agencies and the other regional stakeholders in building enterprise based on sustainable competitive advantage of the region. Regional towns as the drivers of regional economies will obviously be central to the development of these strategies to further enhance the activities of the agencies and the soon to be established LEO network across the regions.

With regard to research and data analysis, this work will draw among others on the Forfás suite of studies on the Regional Competitiveness Agenda, published in 2009, updated by the regional strategies of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.

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