Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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71. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to establish mini business development centres in rural towns and villages; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23035/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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My Department, through Enterprise Ireland and the 31 Local Enterprise Offices across the country provide a range of supports to help companies start, grow and export.

Since the launch of the first Community Enterprise Centre (CEC) scheme in 1989, €64 million has been approved via Enterprise Ireland for the development of CECs across the country.  CECs provide business space for budding entrepreneurs and serve to help the development of entrepreneurship locally in urban and rural locations.  These centres collectively employ 6,051 people across 1,214 companies.

As part of the Government’s regional growth agenda, a €5m Community Enterprise Initiative Scheme was launched in 2015.In June 2016, I announced that 32 applications were successful and these projects amounted to €3.06m.

Furthermore, a €3m competitive Regional Accelerator Scheme was launched by Enterprise Ireland in 2016 and is being rolled out this year.  Accelerators are for-profit organisations that provide startups with a small amount of initial startup seed capital (approx. €20,000) and access to substantial programme benefits and often office space in return for a small amount of equity investment.

To further support collaborative and innovative approaches to boost enterprise and job creation throughout the country, I will shortly be launching a €60 million Competitive Regional Fund. This will be administered by Enterprise Ireland.