Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 6 May 2026
293. Deputy John Paul O'Shea asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment whether the Community Enterprise Association of Ireland was consulted in the design or implementation of the smart regions enterprise innovation scheme; if so, the nature and timing of this engagement and any input received; if not, the reason for the absence of such consultation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33031/26]
View answerBalanced regional enterprise development is a priority for my Department and for Government, as set out in the White Paper on Enterprise 2022-2030. Reflective of this, since 2017, my Department has allocated more than €150 million to support regional enterprise development initiatives. These initiatives include the funding of enterprise centres and hubs, with 61 pieces of key infrastructure funded to date under the Regional Enterprise Development Fund, Border Enterprise Development Fund and Smart Regions schemes.
The Smart Regions Enterprise Innovation Scheme, co-funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and administered by Enterprise Ireland, is currently open for applications. The scheme consists of four streams, supporting the development of key local enterprise resources, such as enterprise hubs, clusters and consortia, programmes that help SMEs foster innovation, and feasibility and priming grants.
The Smart Regions Scheme was designed by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of my Department to act as a follow-on scheme to the Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF). Enterprise Ireland took direction from DETE and a wide range of other stakeholders and built on learnings from the REDF in order to design the Smart Regions scheme.
As well as accommodating the requirements of the regional enterprise ecosystem, it was necessary to incorporate and comply with strict regulatory requirements including ERDF rules and State Aid rules when setting up Smart Regions, as well as ensuring that the scheme was aligned to the objectives of the regional Managing Authorities.
Due to the passage of time and changes in personnel in the intervening time, there is no immediate access to records of who was and was not consulted during the design process. However, Enterprise Ireland had interacted with CEAI (and its predecessor organisation NASEC) in the course of operating the predecessor REDF scheme and therefore the Agency was aware of CEAI’s position as well as the positions of numerous other stakeholders in the relevant ecosystem.
Throughout the design and operation of Smart Regions, Enterprise Ireland has been open to feedback from all stakeholders and has endeavoured to utilise this feedback to improve the scheme, where possible, within the boundaries of regulatory requirements.
