Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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26. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the schemes in place to encourage businesses to set up in our towns and villages; and if he has plans to introduce more schemes to ensure the longevity of towns and villages. [20751/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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There are a wide range of supports in place to support anyone who wants to start a business and the Government is committed to supporting entrepreneurs who want to set up in any of our towns and villages countrywide.

The Deputy will be aware of the work of the network of Local Enterprise Offices across the country. The LEOs provide training and advice on entrepreneurship and helping businesses to start, grow and deal with challenges of running a business. LEOs support job creation and provide accessible high-quality supports for small businesses.

The LEOs provide business advice, training and mentoring supports to anyone looking to start a business, including the Start Your Own Business programme.

LEOs also offer start-up grant assistance to small businesses, with priority given to enterprises in the manufacturing and internationally traded services sectors who have the potential to export. There are thousands of small businesses who have benefited from a business expansion, priming or feasibility grant, through their LEO.

LEOs also provide a wide range of training and mentoring supports, as well as digital and green supports through free consultancy from the Digital and Green for Business, and grant supports such as the Energy Efficiency Grant and Grow Digital Voucher

Aside from business supports, LEOs contribute to the development of economic strategies such as the Local Economic and Community Plans and ensure that an enterprise perspective is brought to bear on various Local Authority and regional plans and frameworks.

LEOs also act as a catalyst for economic development by driving collaboration with the broader enterprise ecosystem at the local level.

Balanced regional development is a Government priority and a central component of the White Paper on Enterprise 2022-2030 is to support balanced regional enterprise development. My Department and its agencies contribute to this agenda in several ways, including through the nine Regional Enterprise Plans. These are bottom-up plans developed and led by regional stakeholders which focus on collaborative initiatives to strengthen the enterprise ecosystem in each region.