Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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68. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if there are plans to develop the structure under which local enterprise offices operate so that centres of excellence could be developed for specialist sectoral support to be available on a regional basis, and inter-enterprise structures developed to evolve responses to collective problems that enterprises face; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43507/24]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Minister has extended the remit of the remit of local enterprise offices, LEOs. I come across a lot of enterprises which do not feel they have access to the specialist advice in each of the 31 LEOs. There needs to be regional centres of excellence. There is scope, in particular in areas like adaptation to green demands, for collaborative approaches in sectors.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge and recognise the role he played in setting up so many LEOs for success up and down the country.

As he will be aware, there are 31 LEOs and they play an important role at local level as part of a supportive ecosystem that provides services directly to small businesses and promotes entrepreneurship in towns and communities across the country. They are the first-stop-shop for all businesses, regardless of sector. Over 370,000 small businesses are eligible for some type of support from their LEO.

It is this unique position that makes the LEOs so effective. They support a diverse range of new and innovative businesses to start and grow in every county and region across the country. The existing national enterprise model has allowed the LEO network to deliver effective national programmes consistent with enterprise policy, designed and overseen by Enterprise Ireland’s LEO centre of excellence, at a local level. The beauty of the system is that support is provided at a local level, in a local county town, to local businesses.

The LEO policy statement, which was launched in May this year, outlines how LEOs will align their work with the priorities of the White Paper on enterprise and sets out the road map and future direction of LEOs. The strength of the current model means that there is a consistency of approach available across the country. All 31 LEOs can draw on the expertise of Enterprise Ireland's centre of excellence, as well as national panels of mentors, to provide clients with bespoke and expert advice.

Small businesses, through LEOs, have access to 16 technology gateways, each of which has sectoral expertise and are located around the country offering innovation support and assistance as well as access to Ireland's four European digital innovation hubs which are regionally based. The immediate challenges facing small businesses, as well as long-term issues like decarbonisation, which the Deputy spoke about, are best addressed through national expertise and initiatives, rather than through regional centres.

Furthermore, since the expansion of the LEO mandate to allow them to support businesses with up to 50 employees, means there is now a greater level of co-operation between LEOs and the Enterprise Ireland regional offices, which is welcome. The capacity of the LEO network will also be strengthened through the development of a new digital client engagement system which Enterprise Ireland is leading on.

Further to this, the National Enterprise Hub, which launched in July last, provides a centralised signposting service for over 230 Government supports in areas like decarbonisation, digitalisation, skills development and innovation. This will allow LEO business advisors to engage even more with entrepreneurs on a personal level to gain a better understanding of their needs. That is the benefit of our LEOs, namely the personal and localised level of the service they provide.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. One of the concerns I have is that there has been an extraordinarily low level of take-up of initiatives to promote a move to sustainable processes through the supply chain, in particular among LEO and Enterprise Ireland clients. Group initiatives are the way to go. I am sceptical that drawing in a contractor essentially to move from one enterprise to the next is the best model. It would be better if the sector gateways to which the Minister of State referred built their provision and created situations whereby beacon companies were leaders to show others the route to take. That model has been used in other countries and can create a greater sense of urgency around the need to adapt.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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To reiterate, it is our intention to make sure that decarbonisation grants and initiatives are easy to access and draw down. We have a €300 million decarbonisation fund, through Enterprise Ireland. Over the first two years, there has been a good and strong take-up of that. At a more local level, over the past three weeks we have made a big effort to reduce the complexity around accessing the LEO energy efficiency grants. We have also increased grant aid from 50% to 75%.

In the next couple of weeks, we will embark on an awareness campaign to show the benefits and showcase some of the companies that have gone down the decarbonisation route, supported by Government initiatives, LEOs and Enterprise Ireland. That will show not just the difference that has made to their business and environment, but also the difference it has made to their bottom line. To reiterate, that is something to which we are absolutely committed.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I agree simplification is a help, but we need people to act in concert. We have seen the success of group schemes in all sorts of different walks of life, such as group water schemes, sustainable energy communities and so on. We need to have a similar momentum within the enterprise sector. That is not happening at the moment.

There are huge opportunities in the food sector for eliminating waste and improving packaging. There are huge areas in the construction sector for managing materials better and thinking differently about design. We need to embed that across the sector rather than hope they will come and pick up grants.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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To echo the sentiment expressed by Deputy Bruton in regard to consistency, we all engage with the LEOs in our own areas but it would be fair to say that some areas are stronger than others. While I might not agree directly with Deputy Bruton’s proposal in terms of centres of excellence, there is definitely a space whereby efforts can be made to ensure consistency across the board. Where something is being done well in one area, particularly where a colleague who engages with their own LEO says it does things in a certain way, you do sometimes scratch your head and wonder why not in my area. There seems to be that little bit of consistency missing. Where something is working well in one area, there should be a mechanism for it to be shared and replicated. If that is not happening organically, it needs a push and some structure.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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We aim for consistency across our 31 local enterprise offices. One of the reasons we have models through our local enterprise offices in every local authority is because decarbonisation is as important in Donegal as it is in Dublin, Cork or Clare. I fully agree with what Deputy Bruton said about the success of group schemes. We need to learn from that. We as a Department are very much committed to making sure key learnings are shared in order that we are not asking companies to reinvent the wheel all the time and we are putting the information and the roadmap in front of them. For example, Diageo, which was one of the beneficiaries of the €300 million decarbonisation fund Enterprise Ireland offers, now has to share all of what it has learned and share its way forward with other companies because it is about making sure other companies can tap into that knowledge and lived experience to bring the benefits to their own companies, whether large or small. It is important everybody makes the effort to decarbonise. That is why the Government is providing so much money for companies to draw down to help them in their efforts to do so.