Employment and Enterprise - North West

Project Ireland 2040 aims to develop Sligo as a regional centre in the North West driving this area as a centre of employment and a range of public services and infrastructure serving surrounding counties.

Enterprise Ireland will assist 1,000 firms to develop and implement of sustainability and growth plans.

To help support employment and enterprise, new Regional Sectoral Clusters will be developed. Led by industry, these Clusters will involve regional SMEs and multinationals collaborating with research centres and third-level institutions, with the aim of scaling and internationalising enterprise in all regions.

2018 will also see the launch of the second phase of the Regional Enterprise Development Fund involving €30 million in total, under Project Ireland 2040.

As part of the Government’s priority efforts to support and equip SMEs for the challenges of Brexit, Enterprise Ireland and Local Enterprise Offices are supporting exposed enterprises with targeted programmes to improve their competitiveness and innovation performance, and to diversify trade from the UK to new markets.

A €300 million loan fund is also open to businesses of less than 500 employees, nation-wide, which are exposed to the impact of Brexit, with at least 40% of this fund to go to agri-food.

See Project Ireland 2040 (PDF, from page 29) for the full detail.