The 35 city and county enterprise boards promote local development principally through the pro vision of grant aid and ‘soft advisory — manage ment supports' to micro-enterprises, ten employees or fewer. The boards receive 75 per cent of their funding under the EU Local Urban and Rural Development Operational Pro gramme, 1994-99.
A detailed analysis, undertaken by my Depart ment, of the performance of enterprise boards, shows that since they were first established in October 1992 up to 31 December 1997 the boards have supported the creation of 11,000 jobs. This is 3,000 in excess of the target set for the entire six years period of the operational programme. These results reinforce the findings in the report of City and County Enterprise Boards Activities 1993-95, published in November 1996, and Mid term Evaluation of the Operational Programme by external consultants, on behalf of the Euro pean Commission.
The Government has recently established a task force, under the chairmanship of the Mini ster for the Environment and Local Government, with representatives of relevant Government Departments, to develop a framework, to be operational by end 1999, for an integrated approach to local government and local develop ment, in which, as I already indicated, enterprise boards play an important role. The outcome of the consultations by my Department with enterprise boards, referred to in reply to a related question on 26 March 1998 — Vol. 489, No. 2, Columns 313-318 — will be conveyed to the task force.
The proposed establishment of Enterprise Ireland will not alter the functions of the enterprise boards, other than that there will be more clearly defined arrangements for microenterprise project transfers between the new agency and the boards.
