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

I will work backwards on the two questions. On the MERITS hub, I totally agree with the Deputy. It is a fabulous investment and I have been on that site twice at this stage. I am glad it featured in the 2019 regional enterprise plan that was launched next door to it in Kildare by the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. The new updated regional enterprise plan for the mid-east region is again focused on the importance of MERITS and benefiting from the investment in that. The Deputy will recall that additional money was allocated to the MERITS project over the last year to make sure that we completed and continued the work that is going on there. There is a great team involved in that. It is not just about serving the county of Kildare but serving the region. We are very much committed to that as a Government and as a Department, and we will work with all involved on that because there are key people involved.

The new Enterprise Ireland strategy that was launched a few months ago details the importance of developing more high potential start-ups but also an increase of 20% in the number of companies that are exporting for the first time. That was driven by the SME task force and we will continue to work with Enterprise Ireland to develop that.

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