Enterprise Ireland’s Jenny Melia believes that Irish enterprise can become the primary driver in the Irish economy.
Earlier this week, Enterprise Ireland launched its new five-year strategy, which includes targets of €50bn exports, 275,000 people employed by Enterprise Ireland-supported companies and 1,000 new start-ups supported.
Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, chair Michael Carey, said the strategy is about ensuring the start-up ecosystem is “the best it can possibly be”.
“It aims to pick off some of those barriers, some of those challenges, like providing the right sort of seed financing and providing the right type of support to develop skills and teams.”
The goals are ambitious and while the strategy is not an action plan providing exact roadmaps to achieving those goals, it did include some more details on what it hopes to achieve.
One of the major plans is the potential development of a new national accelerator programme to assist globally ambitious entrepreneurs and start-ups. This could replace the gap that is due to be left by NDRC later this year.
Jenny Melia, executive director of Enterprise Ireland, spoke about the fact that the volume of supports currently on offer can make it difficult for start-ups to navigate. With this mind, the agency also has plans to develop a new national start-up hub to better showcase their supports, fast-track the start-up process and collaborate with fellow entrepreneurs.
The strategy also highlighted the need to encourage greater engagement from underrepresented groups in the ecosystem in order to “foster a more diverse, equitable and accessible entrepreneurial landscape”.
To do this, Enterprise Ireland will develop new programmes specifically to address this, similar to previous programmes such as Going for Growth and the agency’s Action Plan for Women in Business, which were created to bridge the gender gaps in business.
The agency also announced a target of reaching €2.2bn spend on research development and innovation (RD&I) by Enterprise Ireland-supported companies. In 2023, this spend had reached €1.55bn.
The strategy also included plans to open three new international Enterprise Ireland offices – one in Atlanta in the US, one in Glasgow in Scotland and a Zurich office in Switzerland. At a media briefing following the launch, interim CEO Kevin Sherry said these locations were chosen based on the needs of the agency’s client companies.
“In the long term, we believe that Irish enterprise can become the primary economic driver in the economy,” said Melia.
“We’re really looking forward to the next five years and being there to support the next 1,000 start-ups to make their way through the system and to thrive in overseas markets.”
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