LEO office wins ‘environment’ award

LEO office wins ‘environment’ award

The South Dublin Local Enterprise Office (LEO) was recently named as national European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) winners for ‘Improving the Business Environment’.

The EEPA competition rewards innovative initiatives from public bodies and public-private partnerships which support entrepreneurship, and small and medium-sized enterprises.

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The ‘Improving the Business Environment’ category recognises innovative policies at national, regional or local level which promote enterprise start-up and growth, simplified legislative and administrative procedures for businesses and implementing the ‘Think Small First’ principle in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises.

South Dublin LEO will now move on to represent Ireland at the SME Assembly in Berlin in November. The SME Assembly is the most significant event for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe.

The conference takes place once a year during European SME week.

Tom Rooney, Head of the Local Enterprise Office South Dublin, said, “Local Enterprise Office South Dublin are delighted to receive this recognition for the assistance we provide to the development of new small and micro business opportunities through our financial supports for feasibility and employment development.

“South Dublin’s Sustainable Business programme was the first of its kind in the country. The additional supports under our Business Supports Fund that we can offer business owners to sustain and grow their operations in our older business units at this critical stage in its development is a gamechanger.”

Enterprise Ireland, in conjunction with The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, is pleased to announce the two national winners who will represent Ireland at the European Enterprise Promotion Awards 2020.

The Awards aim to reward innovative initiatives from public bodies and public-private partnerships which support entrepreneurship, and small and medium-sized enterprises.

The two national award winners put forward for the European level of the competition for consideration by the European Enterprise Promotion Awards jury are as follows;

  1. 1. Engenuity Engineering Cluster Midlands, submitted by LEO Westmeath for ‘Investing in Entrepreneurial Skills’ category.

 This project focused on management development, innovation skills training and networking with 20 engineering firms based in the Midlands. Participating companies have seen increased turnover and a growth in exports. Seventy per cent of participating companies have created new jobs. This progress is now being built on with further supports to target sales, marketing and internationalisation skills based on gap analysis performed during the initial phase of the project.

  1. 2. Business Support Funds submitted by LEO South Dublin for ‘Improving the Business Environment’ category.

The Business Support Funds are a unique South Dublin County Council And Local Enterprise Office South Dublin initiative designed to address key issues in industrial areas of the county.

The fund supports physical improvement works and encourages occupiers to improve the investment potential of industrial estates / units. Particular emphasis is placed on those industrial estates experiencing high levels of obsolescence, dereliction and vacancy. The initiative also helps existing small-scale businesses and start-up businesses to utilise previously vacant units.

 The jury will select a European shortlist from amongst the national winners which will be announced in September. The shortlisted projects will go on to compete at the finals which will take place as part of the SME Assembly in November 2020 in Berlin, Germany.

 Richard Murphy, Manager LEO Support, Policy & Co-ordination Unit, Enterprise Ireland, who is a judge for the national competition on behalf of Ireland, said: “We are delighted to be working on this event with the European Commission.

I warmly congratulate our two national award winners for projects which are shining examples of excellence in promoting SME’s and entrepreneurship in a tough economic climate in Ireland.

There are a lot of innovative projects in Ireland and it’s important that we recognise the organisations which actively encourage entrepreneurial spirit”.

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