John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The answer is "Yes". We are certainly doing that. I did not get an opportunity to state that Project Ireland 2040 identified a number of specific priority investments in the area of innovation. These include the establishment of a €500 million disruptive technologies innovation fund, DTIF, which encompasses that to which the Deputy refers. The first call in this competitive process generated interest from all of the regions. This resulted in 27 successful projects being selected with enterprise and research partners based in several counties, including Cork, Limerick, Galway, Louth, Monaghan, Kildare and Tipperary. We look forward to launching further calls under the DTIF in order to harness further collaborative projects with potential across Ireland. We will soon launch nine new regional plans in the coming weeks across enterprise agencies and their core activities.

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