Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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152. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the status of the South-West Regional Enterprise Plan. [60662/21]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Regional enterprise development and sustainable local job creation is a key policy priority of mine and this Government.

My Department is currently overseeing the development of nine new Regional Enterprise Plans to 2024. These are ‘bottom-up’ plans, developed by regional stakeholders which identify growth opportunities, recognise vulnerabilities, and enable job creation across the regions through collaborative regional actions.

The new South-West Plan to 2024, which covers Counties Cork and Kerry, will build on the core activities of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the LEOs.

The South-West Regional Steering Committee is chaired by Patricia Quane, retired VP & General Manager of Astellas Ireland, and includes the Enterprise Agencies, LEOs, Local Authorities and Higher Education bodies, and others, all of whom are focused on creating and sustaining employment opportunities in the region.

Following a review of the outgoing Regional Enterprise Plan to 2020 by the Steering Committee and consideration of future thematic areas of focus, stakeholders in the South-West region were invited to attend a virtual consultation event in June 2021 to contribute to the focus of the new Plan.

The new South-West REP to 2024 is currently being finalised and it is my Department’s intention to have the plan published and launched in early next year.

Finally, over €19.3m has been invested by the Government through Enterprise Ireland into 15 regional enterprise projects in the South-West under the three calls of the Regional Enterprise Development Fund and the recent Regional Enterprise Transition Scheme. I was also pleased to see also that a further €124,000 was recently approved to four applicants in the South-West under my Department’s Feasibility Funding scheme.