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

Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices are the main agencies for supporting new start-up businesses across every region. Up to October 2018, 38 companies were supported through the Enterprise Ireland competitive start fund. This year Enterprise Ireland ran nine competitive start fund calls targeting a range of areas of focus, such as international entrepreneurs, graduates, fintech, agritech and female entrepreneurs.

New Frontiers is Enterprise Ireland’s national entrepreneur development programme for innovative and early-stage start-ups. The programme is based in 14 institutes of technology and two participating universities. At the end of October this year, there were 157 entrepreneurs on the programme.

As of July 2018, 56 high potential start-ups have been supported by Enterprise Ireland. The local enterprise offices are providing a range of training programmes to support new businesses, including start your own business and management development courses. Up to 30 November, there were in excess of 27,000 people on local enterprise office training programmes and 3,452 people on start your own business courses.

All of these supports ensure we have a continuous pipeline of start-up businesses which will create jobs throughout the country.

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