Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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63. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the progress made by his Department to reform the smart regions enterprise innovation scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33126/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Smart Regions Enterprise Innovation Scheme was launched in October 2023. The scheme is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund and administered by Enterprise Ireland. The scheme includes four streams supporting development and provision of local enterprise infrastructure, innovation clusters and consortia, innovation services to SMEs, and early-stage feasibility and priming research.

Smart Regions aims to accelerate economic growth in all regions of the country and has already approved €10 million worth of grants to enterprise development projects across our regions. These investments include cluster development programmes, innovative enterprise support schemes and targeted investment in strategic capital infrastructure underpinning our regional ecosystems.

The Smart Regions scheme operates in a complex legal environment requiring compliance with both State Aid rules and regulations specified by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). For that reason, Enterprise Ireland is continually assessing the threshold for entry, supporting projects with their eligibility. Stream 1 for local enterprise infrastructure has proven the most challenging and, in terms of reform, Enterprise Ireland has recently completed a review introducing a new interpretation for many of the identified projects on its pipeline. All of this activity operates within strict expenditure timelines associated with the ERDF, and, in addition, recent announcements by the European Commission on the modernisation of Cohesion Policy. Enterprise Ireland continues to work on a one-to-one basis with projects and with the network of regional enterprise groups across the country in stimulating new initiatives and projects. Enterprise Ireland is the intermediary body delivering the Smart Regions scheme under Ireland’s ERDF programmes. These wider ERDF programmes are overseen by the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and the Southern Regional Assembly as managing authorities. The Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation has lead responsibility overall for Cohesion Policy in Ireland. My Department engages regularly with Enterprise Ireland, the Regional Assemblies and the Department of Public Expenditure to monitor delivery of the scheme.