Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 June 2025
58. Deputy Tony McCormack asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment the measures his Department is taking to support the economic rejuvenation of towns; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33030/25]
View answerThe Government is committed to bringing forward measures to support small businesses in every region, county and town in Ireland.
The Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) play an extremely important role at local level, providing their services direct to small businesses and promoting entrepreneurship across the country.
The development and publication of the LEO Policy Statement in 2024 sets the strategic direction of LEO programmes. It emphasises this Government’s intention to engage more with locally trading businesses. LEOs will continue to foster a strong entrepreneurial culture and promote enterprise nationally.
As business units within each of the 31 Local Authorities, LEOs support 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.
The LEOs offer a signposting service for all government supports available to small businesses and can provide information/referrals to other relevant bodies e.g. Revenue, Micro Finance Ireland, Fáilte Ireland, LEADER, and Enterprise Ireland.
LEOs provide training and advice on entrepreneurship and helping businesses to start, grow and deal with the challenges of running a business. LEOs support job creation and provide accessible high-quality supports for small businesses.
Balanced regional development is a Government priority and a central component of the White Paper on Enterprise 2022-2030. My Department and its agencies contribute to this agenda in several ways, including through 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.
The REPs aim to bring added value and increased impact through regional actors working collaboratively to address challenges and foster new enterprise development opportunities across Ireland. Each REP comprises several strategic objectives and associated actions which focus on collaborative initiatives to strengthen the enterprise ecosystem in each region; focus areas include decarbonisation, digitalisation and place-making.
In April 2024 Mid-Term Progress Reports were published for the nine REPs and are available on my Department’s website. The recent meeting of the Regional Enterprise Plans National Oversight Group on 25 April 2024 it was agreed that the current REPs would be extended for one year to end 2025.
