Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the success of the shared island initiative to date. I welcome the funding for a project in my constituency, namely the Ulster Canal, which will bring economic benefits to many counties in Ulster. As the Taoiseach may recall from his days at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I have continually raised the value of developing enterprise centres and business hubs in towns and smaller communities where it is not possible to attract inward investment. We have had the development of different enterprise centres throughout counties Cavan and Monaghan that have been key to the growth in jobs locally. One issue that arises all the time for local authorities is their inability from a financial point of view to prepare sites and put services on them to draw down the Enterprise Ireland funding that is available for the actual development of an incubation unit or enterprise centre. Thankfully, some time ago, the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, sanctioned what was known as cross-Border investment proposals where local authorities such as those in Cavan and Monaghan with a number of their counterparts in Northern Ireland work together on specific plans to put together projects to avail of shared island funding in the enterprise space and the development of enterprise centres and business hubs for Border counties, North and South. I would appreciate if that particular area could be given urgent and favourable consideration.

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