Enterprise Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Alan Dillon (FG), Mayo

Balanced regional development is a Government priority and a central component of the White Paper on Enterprise 2022-2030 is to support balanced regional enterprise development. My Department and its agencies contribute to this agenda in several ways, including through the nine regional enterprise plans, REPs. These are bottom-up plans developed and led by regional stakeholders that focus on collaborative initiatives to strengthen the enterprise ecosystem in each region.
The north-east regional enterprise plan covers the counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Louth and its steering committee includes stakeholders from the enterprise agencies, local enterprise offices, local authorities, regional skills, higher and further education, Fáilte Ireland and companies in the private sector and others. The north-east regional enterprise plan has 12 actions under five strategic objectives, which focus on areas including decarbonisation, digitalisation and place-making. The last north-east regional enterprise steering committee meeting was held in June 2025.
The regional enterprise plans were extended for one year to the end of 2025 with agreement from the regional enterprise plans national oversight group at its meeting on 25 April 2024.
This extension provided an additional year for continued implementation of the existing plans and time to review the regional enterprise plan initiative and consider the best approach to the future of the regional enterprise plans. In this context, my Department commissioned an independent review of the regional enterprise plan initiative in 2025. A steering group made up of the regional enterprise stakeholders and Department officials oversaw the review, which included significant engagement with regional enterprise stakeholders, in-depth analysis of the plans and their implementation progress reports and consideration of international approaches to regional enterprise development. This review also included recommendations and options for the future of the regional enterprise plans. I will be considering the complete review, along with the final progress reports for the regional enterprise plans from 2022 to 2025, over the coming months as we plan for the future approach to these matters.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13