John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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82. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the initiatives his Department is taking to promote social enterprise. [43610/21]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The responsibility for the development of policy and the promotion of social enterprises lies with my colleague the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, T.D. and is set out in the Department of Rural and Community Development’s National Social Enterprise Policy for Ireland (2019-2022). This strategy is focused on three key objectives, to build awareness of social enterprises, to grow and strengthen social enterprises and to achieving better policy alignment across government.

Social enterprises operate right across society and the economy, addressing social, economic and environmental challenges. Many social enterprises interact with a wide range of government funding schemes and programmes, in areas such as labour market policy, rural and community development, childcare, health, social inclusion and environmental policy.

In this respect, representatives of my Department and the agencies have engaged with their counterparts in the Department of Rural and Community Development. They have communicated their understanding that social enterprises that meet with the eligibility criteria of the grant aid schemes on offer through Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices would not be precluded from applying for these programmes. Furthermore, the Local Enterprise Offices offer a wide range of high-quality business and management development programmes to any small business, including those that would be considered social enterprises. This policy position has been communicated to the Local Enterprise Offices via the Enterprise Ireland Centre of Excellence.