NEW LOCAL ENTERPRISE OFFICE IN MALLOW OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED OPEN FOR BUSINESS
THE LOCAL Enterprise Office Cork North & West, based in Mallow, is officially open for business.
Minister Sean Sherlock officially launched the new Local Enterprise Office in Mallow on Monday, staffed with professional people with business training, to assist budding entrepreneurs and existing businesses at local level.
The mission of the Local Enterprise Office Cork North & West is to promote entrepreneurship, foster business start-ups and develop existing micro and small businesses to drive job creation, and to provide accessible high quality supports for business ideas.
Small businesses face a host of barriers to success, including: not knowing where to find information and resources; inexperienced management, access to finance or lack of marketing and business planning skills.
Helping to overcome these challenges are among the many ways that Local Enterprise Offices will serve the practical needs of people in business.
The offices will act as a ‘first stop shop’ for business enquiries, making sure that everybody with a query is routed towards the most relevant person or agency to deal with that issue.
“The Local Enterprise Office Cork North & West will provide strategic, administrative, technical and financial
Staff members of the Cork North & West Local Enterprise Offices in Mallow and Clonakilty. Included are front: Michael Hanley, Manager; Christine Heffeernan, Clonakilty; Sheelagh Neville, Mallow; James Fogarty, Cork County Council. Back: Joan Kelleher, Mallow; Kevin Curran, Mallow; Deirdre O’Mahony and Barbara Jennings, both Clonakilty and Moira Murrell, Assistant County Manager, Cork County Council. support and services to start, grow and develop micro and small business in the North & West Cork region,” explained Michael Hanley, Head of Local Enterprise at LEO Cork North & West.
“It combines the former offices of the West and North Cork Enterprise Boards with the reach of the local authority to bring a full suite of services to business.”
County mayor Cllr Noel O'Connor spoke about how the introduction of the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) aims to build on the successful track record of the Enterprise Boards. “This new collaboration between LEO and local authorities (CorkCoCo) now offers us every opportunity to grow on the past successes of the boards and to provide more future successes,” said the mayor.
“With the establishment of the LEOs, enterprise is at the core of local government as well,” added Minister of state Sean Sherlock. “The Local Enterprise Offices have access to the full range of expertise in Enterprise Ireland .... and, new Protocols have been developed with key agencies, such as Revenue, Dept of Social Protection, Education and Training Boards, Skillnets, Microfinance Ireland and the Credit Review Office to ensure you will have access to all Government supports.”
Also speaking at the launch, County Manager Tim Lucey said that, through through the LEOs, the county council will be at the centre of business creation and development in Co Cork.
“Our partnership with the enterprise boards has resulted in the development of a network of advance industrial and food space and more of this is in the pipeline,” he said.
“The council's economic development fund is unique in the country in providing assistance to projects that fall outside the remit of other agencies and this fund will be used for other collaborative projects in co-operation with our colleagues in the Local Enterprise Offices.”
The Mallow LEO is located at Blackwater House, Mallow Business Park, Gouldshill - see www.localenterprise.ie/corknorthandwest.