Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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494.To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the steps his Department is taking to ensure that key social enterprises in Ireland have equal access to enterprise support, such as funding and mentoring from Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs), especially considering the reported difficulties these organisations are facing accessing LEO support due to their legal status or perceived lack of commercial viability.[35790/24]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) play an extremely important role at local level, as part of a supportive ecosystem, providing their services to small businesses and promoting entrepreneurship within towns and communities across the country. They provide a signposting service for all government supports available to SMEs and can provide information/referrals to other relevant bodies under agreed protocols.

Social Enterprises are eligible for LEO assistance provided they operate on a commercial basis and meet the eligibility criteria of the scheme for which they wish to apply.

The LEOs’ range of competitiveness and productivity supports are designed to help businesses address some of their most challenging issues – namely saving time, money and energy. LEOs have broadened their engagement with the small locally traded enterprise sector of the economy in response to Government policies to grow the overall productivity of the economy and meet the challenges of a digital, low carbon economy. Social enterprises may be eligible for supports such as the Grow Digital Voucher, the Energy Efficiency Grant, Green for Business, and the LEO suite of training and mentoring programmes.

There has been positive engagement between Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland (SERI), and the Department of Rural and Community Development which has overall responsibility for social enterprise policy.

Enterprise Ireland and SERI have continued to engage over the summer, and I am informed that an information webinar will be arranged later this month, which will be attended by representatives from all 31 Local Enterprise Offices and SERI. The aim of the webinar is to provide clarity on the range of supports available to social enterprises through the LEOs and the eligibility criteria of these supports.

My colleague Minister Humphreys has recently launched Trading for Impact 2024-2027 - Ireland's National Social Enterprise Policy, to build on the achievements of Ireland's first social enterprise policy. This policy was developed following widespread consultation with stakeholders, including officials in my Department. This launch also included a €2m 'Growing Social Enterprise' fund, with grants ranging from €1,500 to €100,000 available.

The National Enterprise Hub provides a centralised signposting service for over 180 Government supports in areas such as decarbonisation, digitalisation, skills development and innovation. I would encourage social enterprises to also use this new service.

I launched the LEO Policy Statement in May this year, which outlines how LEOs will align their work with the priorities of the White Paper on Enterprise going forward, setting out the road-map and future direction of LEOs. The LEO Policy Statement also affirms the availability of LEO assistance for social enterprises in the commercial sector. It also acknowledges the continued engagement between the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment also continues to engage with the Department of Rural and Community Development on their in-depth policy review on Boosting Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise Development in Ireland, conducted by the OECD.