Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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68. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the way in which she plans to encourage more businesses here to trade online; her plans to develop digital hubs in regional Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50485/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department, through Enterprise Ireland (EI) and the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) delivers a wide range of funded and advisory eCommerce supports and training programmes for businesses to develop their online marketing capabilities.

In Budget 2019, I allocated €1.25m for a Retail Online Scheme which was recently launched by EI. The main objective of this Pilot scheme is to support retailers with a pre-existing online presence to develop and implement a more sophisticated and strategic online trading offer.

The LEOs nationwide actively promote the Trading Online Voucher Scheme (TOVS) on behalf of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Since the start of the scheme in July 2014 to 30 June this year, over 4,100 micro enterprises have availed of trading online vouchers.

With regard to developing digital hubs, there are cross-governmental efforts encouraging a bottom-up approach to strengthening the regions, notably through the Regional Enterprise Development Fund, Urban Regeneration and Development Fund and the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund. Just yesterday, I announced the winners of the second call of the Regional Enterprise Development Fund. A number of the projects that have been offered funding were digital hubs such as:

- Galway City Innovation District CLG, Galway

- Hospital Food Units DAC, Limerick

- Ludgate Operations CLG, Cork

- Offaly Innovation & Design Centre CLG, Offaly

- Sligo County Enterprise Fund CLG, Sligo

My Department is committed to working with companies of all sizes and across all sectors to develop their online trading presence. It is essential to ensure that enterprises in all regions have strong digital resources and skills in order to ensure they remain competitive.