Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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237. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the steps he will take to address systemic inequality after findings show that nearly half of all social enterprises were denied support from their local enterprise office due to their legal status or perceived lack of commercial viability. [36055/24]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Social Enterprises are an important and growing part of Ireland’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, creating jobs and stimulating local economic activity and are recognised as an integral part of Ireland’s broad enterprise policy landscape.

Policy responsibility for social enterprises lies with the Department of Rural and Community Development and in July this year my colleague Minister Heather Humphreys launched 'Trading for Impact 2024-2027 -Ireland’s National Social Enterprise Policy', which will help sustain and grow the social enterprise sector.

In May this year Minister Burke and I launched the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Policy Statement, which outlines how LEOs will align their work with the priorities of the White Paper on Enterprise going forward, setting out the roadmap and future direction of LEOs. The LEO Policy Statement affirms the intention to grow the reach of the LEOs to provide support to all small businesses including Social Enterprises.

Social enterprises are eligible for LEO assistance provided they operate on a commercial basis and meet the eligibility criteria of the particular scheme for which they wish to apply.

The LEOs’ range of competitiveness and productivity supports are designed to help businesses address some of their most challenging issues. LEOs have broadened their engagement with the small locally traded enterprise sector of the economy in response to Government policies to grow the overall productivity of the economy and meet the challenges of a digital, low carbon economy. Social enterprises may be eligible for supports such as the Grow Digital Voucher, the Energy Efficiency Grant, Green for Business, and the LEO training and mentoring programmes.

There has been positive engagement between this Department, Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland, the Enterprise Ireland LEO Centre of Excellence and the Department of Rural and Community Development.

An information webinar will be arranged later this month, which will be attended by representatives from all 31 Local Enterprise Offices and SERI. The aim of the webinar is to provide clarity on the range of supports available to social enterprises through the LEOs and the eligibility criteria of these supports.