Enterprise Ireland Data

Thursday, 21 June 2018

Questions (129)

Billy Kelleher

Question:

129. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the number of Enterprise Ireland exporting client companies that have availed of be prepared grants to date by county in tabular form. [27319/18]

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Written answers

Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation

To be resilient to economic shocks, such as Brexit, Irish exporting companies need to be innovative, competitive and have a diversified global footprint. Enterprise Ireland’s focus for 2018 is to help client companies build on the strength of their 2017 performance by putting an increased emphasis on market diversification, driving innovation and competitiveness.

In addition to the agency’s increased focus on market diversification, innovation and competitiveness, Enterprise Ireland is undertaking a programme to promote companies’ awareness of and level of preparedness for Brexit.

Enterprise Ireland’s Be Prepared Grant supports the costs of SME clients in preparing a plan to mitigate risks and optimise opportunities arising from Brexit. This grant support, of up to €5,000, can be used to help cover consultancy, travel and out of pocket expenses associated with researching the direction of their Brexit action plan. To date, 112 companies have been approved for support under this initiative, as sorted by county in the following table:

County	No of Approvals
Carlow	5
Cavan	5
Clare	5
Cork	7
Dublin	52
Galway	7
Kerry	5
Kildare	6
Kilkenny	5
Laois	5
Limerick	5
Louth	5
Mayo	5
Meath	5
Monaghan	5
Sligo	5
Tipperary South	5
Westmeath	5
Wexford	5
Wicklow	6
Waterford	5
Grand Total	112

Please note numbers for counties with less than 5 Be Prepared Grants cannot be provided to protect the identity of client companies.

It is important to highlight that the level of uptake of Enterprise Ireland Brexit supports is in line with the range of Enterprise Ireland supports that exist to help companies plan for both the opportunities and risks that Brexit poses. In that context, Enterprise Ireland provides a range of financial and non-financial supports to companies to support this, including the recently launched Market Discovery Fund and the Agile Innovation Fund.