Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) was launched in May 2017. It is a €60 million competitive fund aimed at supporting significant regional initiatives that will build on sectoral strengths and improve enterprise capability across the regions. The REDF is intended to support the ambition, goals, and implementation of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs.

The REDF is aimed at accelerating economic recovery in all regions of the country by delivering on the potential of local and regional enterprise strengths. The Fund will support significant collaborative and innovative regional initiatives to build on specific industry sectoral strengths and improve enterprise capability, thereby driving job creation. This will be achieved by co-financing the development and implementation of collaborative and innovative projects that can sustain and add to employment at a national, regional and county level. The Fund will help to ensure the benefits of our growing economy are felt in all regions.  

REDF funding is being made available over the period 2017-2020 under two competitive calls. I have committed to ensuring that each region will benefit by at least €2 million from the Fund once the required standard for projects is met under the evaluation criteria.

The first call under the REDF concluded in August last year and in December 2017, I announced an allocation of €30.5 million in funding across 21 successful projects from all over the country.

On Monday 16th April, at a regional stakeholder event in Farmleigh, I announced the second competitive call under the Fund for the remainder of the €60 million.

Under the first call, one project from the West region received funding under Stream One of the Fund which was for major regional, multi-regional or national sectoral initiatives, attracting grants of €2m up to €5m per project. The project, BIA Innovator Campus, is a Galway based initiative to encourage food entrepreneurship and innovation. The centre is expected to create 360 jobs within 3 years in over 40 businesses while unlocking far reaching innovation ecosystem benefits.

Under the Regional Action Plan for Jobs 2015-2017 for the West region, good progress is being made on job creation towards the target of 25,000 by 2020. There are 15,500 more people in employment in the region from Q1 2015 (baseline year) to Q2 2017.   The unemployment rate in the West at Q4 2017 stands at 5.9 percent, which is slightly lower than the national average for that period. My Department and enterprise agencies will maintain a continued focus on enterprise development and job creation in the region. The Second call under the REDF is an important initiative in this respect, and in addition, this year I am commencing a process in each of the regions including the West to refresh and refocus the Regional Action Plans for Jobs for the period to 2020.