Enterprise Ireland has €5m worth of funding for groups
THERE is €5 million in the kitty for local and regional initiatives up and down the country whose aim is to support new businesses and jobs.
This is being undertaken under the LEO (Local Enterprise Office) Competitive Fund and the Community Enterprise Initiative.
LEOs in Cork North West and South Cork as well as LEO Cork City and LEO Kerry will benefit.
The plan is to develop a graduate programme, placing a high performing graduates in micro enterprises for a one year accredited assignment in order to support the accelerated growth of the hosting business.
The placement will form part of existing Masters programmes and will span a range of disciplines.
Ballyhoura Development Ltd will also benefit where there will be the development and management of a community led cluster of food enterprise activities and infrastructure .
The funding is the beginning of a new approach to supporting job creation initiatives at local and regional level in support of the Regional Action Plan for Jobs.
In line with the commitment in the programme for Partnership Government to create jobs in every region of the country, the €5 million allocation will support ‘ bottom up’ projects, where the local Enterprise Offices will group together to create collaborative projects in their region and €2 million is being allocated to this.
The final €3 million will be for community organisations who will partner with other regional organisations to deliver new job creation projects.
The Regional Job Creation Funds were set up to boost job creation by encouraging ‘ bottom up’ collaborative projects between private and public organisations e.g. providing incubation space, mentoring entrepreneurs , start-up accelerator programmes, supporting industry clusters within and between local and regional areas as well as local driven initiatives.
In the initial calls, €5m was made available to the Local Enterprise Offices for collaboration across the region and €5m was made available to public and private community enterprise organisations to work together at the regional level.