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

I thank the Deputy for raising this question. In April 2018, I asked all of the regional action plan for jobs implementation committees to start a process to refresh and refocus all regional plans to ensure their relevance and impact out to 2020 in order that they continue to deliver jobs across the country in every region and can be robust to address the challenges we face, including Brexit. The outcomes of this refresh process are nine new regional enterprise plans to 2020, which build on the very strong progress made on employment creation under the Regional Action Plan for Jobs 2015-2017. I am in the process of launching the new plans in every region, with eight plans launched to date and a ninth plan, for the south east, scheduled to be launched by the end of this month. Shaped from the bottom up by regional stakeholders, and overseen by my Department, the new regional enterprise plans to 2020 complement national level policies and programmes emanating from the top down and there is strong alignment with Ireland’s national enterprise policy, Enterprise 2025 Renewed, and the forthcoming future jobs Ireland initiative.

The principle behind the regional enterprise plans is collaboration between regional stakeholders on initiatives that can help to realise the region's enterprise development potential. These stakeholders include local authorities, the local enterprise offices, LEOs, the enterprise agencies, the regional skills forum, tourism bodies, private sector enterprise champions, the higher education institutes and others. These new plans, therefore, have a strong relevance for rural Ireland, with actions focused on areas such as skills development, tourism, the food sector, agritech, the marine and maritime, regional enterprise co-working and remote working spaces, talent retention and place-making. I hope that successful initiatives being driven through these plans can be shared as best practice in all regions in rural Ireland.

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