Promoting entrepreneurship and facilitating the key infrastructural needs of Irish enterprise across all regions is vital to ensuring a vigorous pipeline of new business leaders, new business ideas and innovative products and services. Enterprise Ireland is heavily focused on facilitating entrepreneurship and the enterprise environment in local and rural communities, on driving the creation of innovation based start-ups and on proactively developing companies in all regions.
In the 2008–2010 period Enterprise Ireland will continue to work in partnership with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and other agencies and stakeholders to implement a co-ordinated approach to promoting entrepreneurship and supporting start-up activity throughout Ireland.
Enterprise Ireland will continue to play a key role in facilitating the development of the enterprise environment in local and rural communities. We will continue to support the development of community-led enterprise centres, which are an important enabler for entrepreneurs and businesses in local and rural areas. To drive enterprise development we will also play a key partnership role with the local and regional development bodies throughout Ireland.
A well developed enterprise infrastructure will more readily allow new innovation based businesses to generate and emerge. We will drive the growth in the creation of innovation based start-ups to stimulate the emergence of new high potential growth companies at local level, providing a comprehensive range of supports to address their development needs. We will work closely with Ireland’s universities and Institutes of Technology, which play a crucial role in developing and fostering these types of companies.
To achieve increased prosperity in the regions and at national level Enterprise Ireland seeks to drive export gains among client companies in all locations. We will use our regional offices to proactively develop existing client companies at local level, and target increased participation in Enterprise Ireland activities. This will include, as appropriate, the engagement with established companies that are not currently clients of Enterprise Ireland. We will drive collaboration among private and state bodies in development of a world-class environment in which growing a business is more readily possible.
Enterprise Ireland’s strategy is designed to ensure that opportunities for Irish enterprises and entrepreneurs are maximised throughout all regions and that relevant support is provided to meet the increasing challenges faced in the global marketplace. Enterprise Ireland is focused on working with the city and county enterprise boards and business innovation centres to provide a seamless continuum of support for Irish business, matching their needs with the best resources available. In practice, this will introduce a greater degree of connectedness and flexibility in the enterprise support system.
Enterprise Ireland, in conjunction with Forfás and a number of other partners, continues to support the provision of essential infrastructure for businesses in all regions. This is particularly important, as having the right environment can both promote entrepreneurship and take full advantage of it. We will build upon the significant progress made in 2005–2007 over the period of Transforming Irish Industry 2008–2010.
The development of an all-island economy is of significant strategic importance. The same barriers to development are relevant to all companies in all parts of the island of Ireland. In providing for better outcomes for all, we will deepen our relationship with Invest Northern Ireland and InterTradeIreland, with the objective of sharing best practice, increasing the complementarity of our respective services and in exploring opportunities for greater, beneficial synergy.
We will engage in collaborative initiatives that add value to the existing services and supports provided and respond to a demonstrable need amongst client companies.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment launched Enterprise Ireland’s latest community-led enterprise centre (CEC) scheme in 2007. This fund, totalling €21 million will be rolled out over three calls for applications from communities during this strategy.
The availability of business space is a fundamental infrastructural requirement for enterprises in any location to establish new companies and grow existing ones. Community enterprise centres (CECs) provide the space and supportive environment for budding entrepreneurs and serve to help the development of entrepreneurship locally in urban and rural locations. CECs are a tangible and visible contribution to regional development.
The Enterprise Ireland-supported CEC scheme provides infrastructural facilities in areas previously under-represented in start-up activity. This is a community-led initiative between local communities and the State with the objective of enhancing the development of an enterprise climate.
In responding to the need for enterprise space at local level, we will continue to implement funding and support for CECs to help local communities to establish sustainable businesses.
