Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is five years since the local enterprise offices, LEOs, were established and over 18,000 jobs have been created and 18,000 companies started. This is very positive. I pay tribute to the people who work in the LEOs and the many volunteers who work with them on the mentoring programme and with the businesses. It is an issue we need to consider more and more and encourage more people to visit the LEOs because there is so much information available inside their doors and so much help that people are not aware of. I congratulate all 18,000 people whose jobs were created by the LEOs.