Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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76. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation when successful applicants under the 2018 regional enterprise development fund will be announced; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30277/18]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The  Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) is a €60 million competitive fund aimed at  supporting significant regional initiatives to build on sectoral strengths and/or to better leverage identified resources to improve enterprise capability. The REDF is funded by my Department and administered by Enterprise Ireland and is being made available over the period 2017-2020 under two competitive calls. The first call was announced in May 2017, with successful applicants announced on 4 December 2017.  

21 projects were funded totaling €30.5m in aggregate grant support. All regions secured funding under the first call.

Call Two of the REDF closed on 28 June 2018.

All applications received are now being checked against published eligibility criteria. Eligible applications will then go through a seven-stage assessment process.

This includes: assessment against scheme criteria by EI Regional Executives; simultaneous assessment of value and impact for money, and viability and sustainability (carried out by an independent commercial evaluator); evaluation by two panels; recommendation to the Enterprise Ireland Investment Committee; and review by a Special Advisory Committee.

Finally, REDF applications recommended for funding will be submitted to the Board of Enterprise Ireland. The target date for this is 14^thNovember 2018.

After the Board decision, I will publish the ‘conditional grant’ amounts offered to successful projects.

All applicants considered for funding support must reach a minimum score of 60% to be eligible for funding support.

In order to ensure a balanced regional spread, I have committed to ensuring that each region will benefit by at least €2 million from the overall Fund once the required standard for projects is met under the evaluation criteria.