From Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
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Minister of State with responsibility for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Robert Troy TD is delighted to announce today that a purposed hub in Edgeworthstown has been approved funding under the Regional Enterprise Development Fund administered through Enterprise Ireland.
Minister Robert Troy TD said:
"I welcome the announcement of the approval of funding today. With this funding, the Old Ulster Bank building will be redeveloped into an enterprise hub that will facilitate up to 38 people with short- and long-term working spaces. This funding is extremely important to fostering a strong and vibrant community in Edgeworthstown.
"One of the key messages of this government is to lead on the creation and maintenance of high quality and sustainable full employment across all regions of the country by championing enterprise and innovation. This will have significant impact for the county of Longford, as this centre will become a key economic driver, supporting regeneration and economic growth in Longford.
"While there are challenges ahead, with challenge comes opportunity. As Minister of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I am determined to support projects such as this to ensure our regional communities get every opportunity to develop and grow."
Leitrim County Enterprise Fund has secured funding of more than €1.2 million for the development of a Network of Digital and Innovation Hubs across three counties; Cavan, Leitrim and Longford. The Hive in Leitrim is expanding their existing facility in Leitrim; Cavan Digital Hub has renovated an old building and is now open as an enterprise hub.
The Longford Hub which was approved funding today will be based in an old bank, on the main street in Edgeworthstown, formerly the Ulster Bank building.
A key objective of the hub in Longford is to promote the successful development of emerging businesses that will graduate from the Hub to move out into the wider community contributing to the overall vitality, diversity, and growth of the Longford economy.
The Hub in Edgeworthstown will create a vibrant space which is attractive to people looking to develop business ideas. It will provide concentrated supports to assist enterprises to get established. It will increase the number and quality of job opportunities available for people, reducing the need to move out of the Longford region for career purposes. This hub will offer people and enterprises different types of desk, office and meeting room spaces, utilising the latest technologies and the fastest broadband available in the marketplace. The Edgeworthstown hub will assist with the towns and county’s revival, enterprise and economic development.
The Fund, which was an open national competitive call to support regional projects, is provided by the Department of Business, Enterprise Trade and Employment, administered through Enterprise Ireland and is a key action to supporting the Regional Enterprise Plans and the Action Plan for Rural Development.
ENDS
| Projects Recommended for approval | Total Projects in Region | Max Grant Amount |
| Northern & Western Region | 4 | 5,072,588 |
| Monaghan County Enterprise Fund | Monaghan | |
| Leitrim County Enterprise Fund | Leitrim/Cavan/Longford | |
| Donegal Digital Innovation CLG | Donegal | |
| BIA Innovator Campus CLG | Galway | |
| Southern Region | 11 | 14,290,848 |
| Irish Bioeconomy Foundation CLG | Tipperary/National | |
| Emerald Aerocluster CLG | Limerick/ Shannon/Ireland | |
| Insurtech Network Centre DAC | Carlow | |
| ThreeD (Design Develop Disseminate) DAC | Waterford/South | |
| Agritech Centre of Excellence CLG | Kerry/National | |
| RDI Hub CLG | Kerry/National | |
| Cork Urban Enterprises CLG | Cork | |
| IT@Cork CLG | Cork | |
| KerrySciTech CLG | Kerry/Cork | |
| Sneem Innovation & Technology Services CLG | Kerry | |
| MOL TEIC CLG | Kerry | |
| Eastern & Midlands Region | 6 | 11,088,043 |
| County Kildare Community Network Company CLG | Kildare | |
| Dublin Enterprise & Technology Centre CLG | Dublin/National | |
| Ghala DAC | Dublin/National | |
| Social & Local Enterprise Alliance DAC | Dublin | |
| BPO Cluster Ireland CLG | Dublin/National | |
| Irish Manufacturing Research CLG | Westmeath/National | |
| Grand Total | 21 | 30,451,479 |
All project approvals are subject to Enterprise Ireland grant conditions.
| Applicant Name (per Application Form) | Nature of Application | |
| 1 | AgriTech Centre of Excellence CLG | The development of a Global AgriTech Centre of Excellence with the objective of positioning Ireland at the forefront of the international AgriTech Industry. |
| 2 | BIA Innovator Campus CLG | BIA Innovator Campus is a step change project that will transform the food entrepreneurship landscape in the West of Ireland by realising a dynamic food and drink innovation centre creating 360 jobs within 3 years in 40+ businesses while unlocking far reaching innovation ecosystem benefits. |
| 3 | BPO Cluster Ireland CLG | BPO Cluster Ireland was set up to bring together key indigenous Business Processor Outsourcers BPO’s to form a cluster group to actively promote the BPO sector in Ireland. This is a cluster development initiative focused on scaling the sector and growing turnover and employment. Current members and partners include “outsourcers” such as Arise-Europe (Limerick), Arema (Cork), Abtran (Cork) Voxpro (Cork) Interaction (part of the CPL Group – Dublin), Rigney Dolphin (Waterford), Fexco (Kerry) and Zevas (Cork). This cluster has the opportunity to meet these challenges and seize emerging opportunities by collaborating together in a formal and structured way. |
| 4 | Cork Urban Enterprises CLG | The project is to develop the Northside for Business Campus to become the driving centre for enterprise growth and enhance the capacity of the Northside for Business Initiative to build enterprise capacity across the north side of Cork City, the greater metropolitan area and region, and in the case of two of the proposed objectives - nationally. |
| 5 | Kildare Community Network Co Ltd | The Mid East Regional Innovation Think Space (MERITS) is a new build project to cluster Irish and international new-technology companies and provide mentorship and support in Naas County Kildare. |
| 6 | Donegal Digital Innovation Company | Create an innovation ecosystem in Inishowen, Co Donegal, by delivering a 3-year enterprise capacity building programme, based on cross-fertilising the peninsula’s location factors, high tech skillsets, applied research potential in traditional sectors focused around a new Inishowen Digital Innovation Hub. |
| 7 | Dublin Enterprise & Technology Centre | The Dublin Enterprise & technology Centre (GEC2) gives physical expression to government policy in support of the entrepreneurial ecosystem by providing a world-class enterprise and co-working centre of excellence for start-ups. |
| 8 | Emerald Aero Cluster CLG | Emerald Aero Cluster aims to develop Ireland and the Mid-West region as a hub for global aerospace manufacturing excellence resulting in the creation of an additional €20m worth of additional export revenues over the next three years. This increase in revenue will result in the creation of 200 new direct jobs. Emerald Aero Cluster Group is a cluster of 14 indigenous manufacturing companies, brought together with the specific purpose of increasing Aerospace manufacturing export revenues for members and aerospace business for the Republic of Ireland. Member companies include; Dolmen DPF Eng Ltd, Paradigm Plastics Ltd T/A Future Plastics, Key Plastics LTD, Lenane Precision Limited, Panalok, Shannon Precision Engineering Ltd, Takumi Precision Engineering Ltd, Thormac, Total Precision Ltd., Croom Precision Medical, Mann Precision Eng, Dawnlough Limited, T&T Precision Ltd, Eirecomposites Teo |
| 9 | Ghala DAC | Development of a new innovation centre at the Tower @ TTEC, located beside Grand Canal Dock in central Dublin. |
| 10 | InsurTech Network Centre | INC (InsurTech Network Centre) is a sector specific enterprise development centre that will provide business development services to support the creation and commercialisation of technology solutions to the global insurance services sector, including the delivery of business development programmes, technology transfer services, and providing work spaces for entrepreneurs and related services including inter alia training, mentoring, peer to peer collaboration. |
| 11 | Irish Bioeconomy foundation CLG | Development of a state-of-the-art National Bioeconomy Innovation & Piloting Facility encompassing flexible, modular, pilot-scale multi-purpose chemical & biological infrastructure. |
| 12 | Irish Manufacturing Research CLG | Irish Manufacturing Research(IMR) is a “not for profit CLG company that was formed in 2014 with the mission to facilitate significant growth and job creation in the Irish manufacturing sector. It does this by developing and commercialising next generation manufacturing technologies, deemed critical by Irish companies, through a collaborative industrial engagement business model. The REDF funding will develop in the region a significant and important research and development capability in the areas of Collaborative Robotics and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality. IMR will do this in partnership with Industry such as Kuka, Pilz, National Cobotics Steering Group and with our close Academic Partners from I-FORM, UCD and International foundation Smartlabs/VR First/An Saol. |
| 13 | IT@Cork | It@cork is a leading industry-led, not for profit business organisation. It is a cluster development initiative for the ICT sector in Cork. A cluster manager will steward IT@Cork’s member companies to foster collaboration between companies and organisations and increase participation with one another and the broader region as a whole. There are over 200 member companies from a variety of sectors including companies from the hardware and software sectors, customer support companies, financial institutions consultancy firms, state promotion agencies, local government and academia. |
| 14 | KerrySciTech | To develop KerrySciTech as a catalytic cluster for the growth of science and technology jobs in Kerry and furthering its successful evolution by implementing innovative and collaborative initiatives as an industry led & demand driven value creating cluster for the region. |
| 15 | Leitrim County Enterprise Fund Ltd | Development of a network of three Digital and Innovation Hubs in Counties Leitrim, Cavan and Longford. |
| 16 | MOL TEIC | A Community Enterprise Job Creation Initiative with three Main Pillars, IOT, Animation and Film/Music to create 200+ well-paid jobs in Dingle in the next 5 years. |
| 17 | Monaghan County Enterprise Fund Food | Development of a Regional Food Centre of Excellence and a range of Food Product development supports, Test and Training kitchen facility, creating collaborations in the food sector regionally, fostering entrepreneurial growth and creating jobs in rural Co. Monaghan. |
| 18 | RDI Hub Company Limited by Guarantee | RDI Hub is a major change initiative located in the Southwest, with national impact and global reach. RDI Hub will a) develop a sustainable pioneering world-class Digital Innovation Hub and Living Lab ecosystem to forge new paths for economic growth and accelerated job creation and b) build on Southwest regional strengths to establish its USP as a globally connected Financial Services, Innovation enterprise and skills hotspot. |
| 19 | SNEEM INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CLG T/A SNEEM DIGITAL HUB | SDH will explicitly target local entrepreneurs and SMEs, both those wanting to use SDH premises as a location; and people in the area needing business support. It will also target at least one hub-working employer to establish a base in the premises (7-10 desks target) – while retaining its focus on the Start-up & micro SME sector. |
| 20 | Social & Local Enterprise Alliance DAC | This project, titled ‘The Edge’ is a dynamic new approach to the establishing, hosting, inspiration and empowerment of creative, innovative and artisan start-ups in South Dublin County creating a full-on and fertile enterprise experience for a new age of entrepreneur. |
| 21 | Three-D (Design Develop Disseminate) DAC | Three-D project initiative is about creating a 3D Manufacturing facility in the southeast that will provide: Advanced manufacturing training to industry employees, AM exposure to undergraduate students, develop standards for additive manufacturing, and provide product development support. |
All project approvals are subject to Enterprise Ireland grant conditions.