Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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13. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to provide initiatives for the establishment of innovation hubs in rural counties such as County Donegal similar to the successful launches of PorterShed in Galway and The Mill in Drogheda; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6188/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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In June 2016, I announced an initial allocation of €5m in competitive funding for 48 local and regional initiatives. PorterShed in Galway and The Mill in Drogheda benefitted from the funding. Two projects from Donegal also benefitted from the funding in 2016.

The Funds were set up to boost job creation by encouraging ‘bottom up’ collaborative projects between private and public organisations e.g. providing incubation space, innovation hubs, mentoring entrepreneurs, start-up accelerator programmes, supporting industry clusters within and between local and regional areas as well as local driven initiatives.

As part of the Action Plan for Jobs 2017, my Department, through Enterprise Ireland, has committed to support the Regional Action Plans for Jobs and provide investment of up to €60m over the period to 2020.

A Regional Competitive Funding Initiative administered by Enterprise Ireland will be launched shortly.  The overarching aim is to drive balanced regional enterprise development throughout the country.

My plan over the coming months and years is to work in support of organisations that come forward with good projects to boost enterprise and job creation in their regions.

So I would urge private and public organisations from Donegal to apply.

Applications for funding will be invited through a public call for submission of projects. This will be announced in the National Press over the coming weeks.