Mid-West Regional Enterprise Plan to 2024

The Mid-West Regional Enterprise Plan to 2024 was launched by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in Nenagh on 18 February 2022.

The new plan includes projects and initiatives across the three Mid-West counties (Clare, Limerick and Tipperary). Stakeholder consultation sessions attracted over 60 attendees from across industry, public sector and higher education sectors from within the region. The sessions highlighted the high level of collaboration and ambition that exists within the region, with a strong sense of optimism prevalent despite some regional challenges. Five key strategic objectives were agreed, with discrete actions developed for each.

Digitalisation and innovation

This objective includes actions across themes such as advanced manufacturing, future mobility, film, sportstech, and healthcare.

Sustainability

This objective includes actions across themes such as bioeconomy, renewable energy and sustainability in the built environment.

Enterprise in regional towns / rural areas

This objective includes actions such as the development of a network of high quality eHubs, development of food hubs, a skills heat mapping exercise, and digitalisation of the tourism sector.

Supporting SME, start-ups and microbusiness

This objective contains actions such as industry cluster development, promotion of apprenticeships and traineeships, management and financial training, efforts to develop/accelerate HPSUs.

Social enterprise and tackling areas of high unemployment

This objective includes actions such as the growth of social enterprise to achieve sustainable progress towards employment equality. This objective also includes development of a connected jobs strategy to address long-term unemployment in blackspot areas, and the development of targeted approaches for individual blackspots including a creativity hub at LEDP near Southill, a marine enterprise zone in West Clare and a task-force lead program of works in Tipperary town.

Education, training and skills initiatives will be delivered to support each of the objectives, with an overall goal to continue building regional capacity by leveraging regional strengths and opportunities.

Professor Eamonn Murphy chairs the new plan for the Mid-West, with support from program manager Dr Paraic Rattigan.