Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There needs to be an awareness of what is available and what supports can be accessed by social enterprises. The supports are often beyond the reach of social enterprises. They are so busy with what they are trying to do within their communities that we must make it as easy as possible.

I, too, recently met with Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland, SERI, the representative body for social enterprises in the State. We talked about some of the excellent social enterprises, such as the NOW group in Belfast and the Together Academy in Dún Laoghaire. I want to see more collaboration across the island. There is a fantastic social enterprise in Belfast City Hall for young autistic people and I would like to see that replicated in Mayo. There is huge potential across the board if we support such initiatives in the right way and are flexible and agile enough to respond to their needs, encourage and enable the good work that is being done, encourage more of it, and encourage the collaboration and exchange of learning between the enterprise models. That is what I would like to see, as well as SERI being resourced to be able to be the representative body in the best way it can.

See this speech in context