Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

71. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on whether a new State-wide enterprise agency is needed to coordinate the good work of the local enterprise offices around the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7032/22]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Local Enterprise Offices act as a ‘first stop shop’ providing advice and guidance, financial assistance, and training to anyone wishing to start or grow their own business. The LEOs promote entrepreneurship, foster start-ups and develop existing micro and small enterprises at a local level, be that at rural community, town, village or city level, delivering advisory and funding assistance (e.g. Start Your Own Business, online trading, innovation, competitiveness and employment measures), and providing referral services for other state supports.

Following the dissolution of the County Enterprise Boards, the 31 Local Enterprise Offices were established in 2014 under the Local Authority structure.

The LEOs are funded by my Department and the coordination of the activities of the LEOs is carried out by a dedicated Centre of Excellence in Enterprise Ireland. The role of this unit is to provide a range of business supports to the Local Enterprise Offices to enhance their impact on the development of micro-enterprise and small business. Enterprise Ireland also provide strategic and policy direction to the Local Enterprise Offices.

The Local Enterprise Offices have just come out of their 8th consecutive year of growth with 7,400 new jobs created by LEO clients in 2021. The LEOs now support over 7,100 companies financially within their portfolio with almost 36,000 associated jobs and a net gain of 3,000 jobs in 2021. That is not to mention the thousands of other businesses they have helped with additional measures such as training and mentoring programmes, the Trading Online Voucher scheme, LEAN for Micro, Green for Micro and the Start Your Own Business programme.

The Local Enterprise Offices are at the very heart of business development and entrepreneurship in towns and communities right across the country. This is shown by the figures reported, with 85% of Local Enterprise Office client company employment based outside of Dublin.

In line with the Programme for Government commitments on Enterprise Policy, this integrated approach between the Local Enterprise Offices and Enterprise Ireland provides a clear pathway for progression from the LEOs to Enterprise Ireland for small companies with the potential to grow and export. Furthermore, the new Enterprise Ireland strategy sets out a commitment to ensure a continuation of support for enterprises that have grown to ten or more employees, as appropriate to their stage of development and growth ambition.

The recent employment results demonstrates that the collaborative model between the LEOs, Enterprise Ireland and the Local Authorities is working on the ground. The expanding role of the LEOs as well as closer integration with Enterprise Ireland will ensure that we can build on this success and deepen the impact of the LEOs right across the country.