Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The regional enterprise development fund, REDF, supported by my Department through Enterprise Ireland, was launched in May 2017. It is a €60 million competitive fund aimed at supporting significant regional initiatives that will build on sectoral strengths and improve enterprise capability across the regions. The REDF is intended to support the ambition, goals, and implementation of the regional action plans for jobs.

The REDF is aimed at accelerating economic recovery in all regions of the country by delivering on the potential of local and regional enterprise strengths. The fund will support significant collaborative and innovative regional initiatives to build on specific industry sectoral strengths and improve enterprise capability, thereby driving job creation. This will be achieved by co-financing the development and implementation of collaborative and innovative projects that can sustain and add to employment at a national, regional and county level. The fund will help to ensure the benefits of our growing economy are felt in all regions.

REDF funding is being made available over the period from 2017 to 2020 under two competitive calls. I have committed to ensuring that each region will benefit by at least €2 million from the fund once the required standard for projects is met under the evaluation criteria. The first call under the REDF concluded in August last year, and in December 2017 I announced an allocation of €30.5 million in funding across 21 successful projects from throughout the country. On Monday 16 April, at a regional stakeholder event in Farmleigh, I announced the second competitive call under the fund for the remainder of the €60 million.

Under the first call, one project from the midlands, Irish Manufacturing Research, IMR, based in Westmeath, was approved funding under stream one of the fund. This was for major regional, multi-regional or national sectoral initiatives, attracting grants ranging from €2 million up to €5 million per project.

See this speech in context