Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 November 2023
20. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his plans for strengthening the capacity of the LEO network to give specialist support to enterprises, with varying needs and regional specialisms, within their remit and to the development of regional centres of excellence. [51510/23]
View answerThe Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) play an extremely important role providing their services direct to small businesses and promoting entrepreneurship within towns and communities across the country. They act as a ‘first stop shop’ at a local level providing expert advice and guidance, financial assistance, and offer a ‘signposting’ service for all government supports available to business owners throughout the country.
It is this unique position that makes the LEOs so effective, supporting a diverse range of new and innovative businesses to start and grow in every region, as evidenced by the year-on-year employment growth of LEO client companies.
The existing national assistance enterprise model has allowed the LEO network to deliver effective national programmes consistent with enterprise policy, designed and overseen by Enterprise Ireland’s Centre of Excellence, at a local level.
National campaigns, such as the recently launched ‘All in a Day’s Work’ campaign, focus on how the Lean, Green and Digital products offered by the LEOs can help businesses to save time, money, and energy, while the LEO Mentor Programme provides LEO Clients with the knowledge, skills, insights and entrepreneurial capability of experienced business practitioners.
2024 is the ten-year anniversary of the LEOs. To tie into this, officials in my department have commenced work on the development of a LEO policy statement that will set out the future direction for the LEOs in the coming years while implementing the White paper on Enterprise to further enhance the services available through the LEOs.
