Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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215. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the number of the 2024 actions contained in the Trading for Impact: National Social Enterprise Policy 2024-2027 that have commenced to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43294/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Trading for Impact, the new social enterprise policy puts forward a vision designed to help cultivate and sustain strong, impactful social enterprises in Ireland. This, in turn, will enrich the social, environmental and economic well-being of people living in our communities, both rural and urban.

The policy lays out 57 concrete actions, across five policy objectives: ‘Building Awareness of Social Enterprise’, ‘Growing and Sustaining Social Enterprise’, ‘Supporting the Green Transition’, ‘National and International Engagement’, and ‘Impact measurement’.

Through delivery of these policy objectives, Trading for Impact will create sustainable pathways to enhance both quality of life and economic opportunity while improving the capacity of social enterprises.

33 of these actions are scheduled to commence in 2024. Of these, 27 of these actions have commenced. These include:

• Establish a €2m capital support scheme to help capacity building for social enterprises.
• Deliver a National Social Enterprise Conference.
• Commission a partner organisation/s to support the delivery of social enterprise policy actions.
• Publish a quarterly Newsletter.
• Deliver research on rural social enterprises ‘Mapping Social Enterprises and their Impact on Sustainable Rural Development in Ireland’.
• Engage with Regional Assemblies on Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies to raise awareness of the potential of social enterprise.
• Enhance the co-ordination and consolidation of social enterprise representative organisations.