Minister to announce €5m in Enterprise Development funding
Cavan Town's proposed Digital Hub development is set to benefit from more €5 million in funding set to be announced later this afternoon.
The announcement by newly appointed Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation Heather Humphreys will see significant funding approved for Northern & Western regional enterprise.
Minister Humphreys unveiled the latest tranche of funding to aid business development locally at the Ballybay Enterprise Park.
Cavan Digital and Innovation Hubs is expected to one of the major beneficiaries of the funding.
To stimulate regional growth towards 2020, the Government has announced a €60 million competitive Regional Enterprise Development Fund over two calls.
Under a competitive call process, Enterprise Ireland sought applications for funding under four streams with varying investment levels:
Stream 1. Major Change Projects - €2m up to €5m per project
Stream 2. Regionally Significant Projects - €250,000 up to €2m per project
Stream 3. Local & Community Enterprise Development Projects - €50,000 up to €250,000 per project
Stream 4. Industry Clusters - €50,000 up to €250,000 per project.
Following a rigorous evaluation process, 21 successful applicants are being offered funding of €30.5m. These include a spread of projects across the regions, with 14 funded in Streams 1 and 2, and 7 in Streams 3 and 4. The balance of the €60m fund will be made available in the second call which will open for applications in March 2018.
Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys, said: “This Fund allows us to support the Regional Action Plan for Jobs, helping to drive growth in key sectors or geographies across the country, particularly in the context of Brexit.
“We are backing local and regional stakeholders to drive the future of their own communities by supporting their innovative proposals which will help to deliver job creation and sustainable employment.”
The announcement was also welcomed by fellow party member and local Senator Joe O'Reilly, who welcomed the “great news”.
“It will directly support innovative projects here in Cavan and in our region as a whole and in doing so, help to create rural jobs. By creating jobs in rural Ireland we can convince young people to live in rural areas. I wish the successful applicants every success and urge companies in our area to consider applying for the second round of funding early next year,” he said.
“The jobs recovery is finally spreading into the regions. In the last twelve months, four out five jobs created were outside Dublin and the live register figures in all of our regions are heading in the right direction. But there’s still a long way to go and no room for complacency,” Sen O'Reilly added.