Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this question. If it is okay, I might answer it because the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and I chair the regional enterprise strategies, on behalf of the Tánaiste.

Regional enterprise development and sustainable local job creation is a key policy priority of the Government. Our Department is overseeing the development of nine new regional enterprise plans which will bring us out to 2024. The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and I chair eight of them and the Tánaiste chairs the Dublin ones. These are "bottom-up" plans, developed by regional stakeholders, which will identify growth opportunities, recognise vulnerabilities and enable job creation across the regions, including in the mid-west region, through collaborative regional actions. As the Deputy will be aware, in his case that covers Tipperary, Limerick and Clare.

The new mid-west regional enterprise plan to 2024 will build on the core activities of the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs with the wider range of State bodies involved in supporting enterprise development in the region. A big part of that is the relationship with our education system. In the Deputy's case, LIT is very much involved, as is the ETB in Tipperary. As I say at all those regional meetings, a big driver of making this happen and the success of the regional plans are the local authorities. That ringtone is a message from Joe McGrath to make sure I do not forget to mention local authorities. I refer to the involvement of the local authorities in making these regional plans happen.

In driving the delivery of the new plan in the mid-west we have engaged directly with the mid-west regional steering committee, made up of regional stakeholders and chaired by Professor Eamonn Murphy. At this stage I think I have met Professor Murphy on four or five occasions. As the Deputy will be aware, he is the managing director of the Irish Centre for Business Excellence. As a region Tipperary is very lucky to have him as a chair. He is really driven to make sure we have economic success across Tipperary, Clare and Limerick. The last time I met the steering committee was physically, last week, on 7 September. I am conscious that Deputy Cahill sent his apologies that he could not make the meetings we had in Limerick, and I thank him for that, but he was well represented by his colleague on the council, who put forward a very strong case for investment in Tipperary.

The regional stakeholders in the mid-west region are working to finalise focused strategic objectives for their region and actions to deliver on these objectives and intend to sign off on the new plan in the weeks ahead.

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