Minister Micheál Martin visits Kells Enterprise Centre project

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment Micheál Martin TD today (Wednesday 24^th May 2006) visited the Kells Enterprise Centre, which is being developed in Kells Business Park.

Commenting, Minister Martin said “The development of community based enterprise centres is an essential part of the drive to create new enterprises in County Meath. These centres provide a supportive environment for budding entrepreneurs and serve to help the development of entrepreneurship at the local level. This is the third enterprise centre in the County, the others being located in Trim and Navan.”

“Enterprise Ireland approved grant assistance in excess of €635,000 for these projects in the county under its Community Enterprise Centre programme. The programme, which is managed by Enterprise Ireland, is a community led initiative in the form of a partnership between the local community and the State. Its objective is to enhance the development of an enterprise climate through the provision of infrastructural facilities that will support the establishment and expansion of micro enterprises which in turn may grow into larger enterprises” the Minister added.

“The Community Enterprise Centre here at Kells, when completed, will provide approximately 2,300sqm of high quality, state of the art incubation space to cater for new manufacturing or service projects. There will be high-spec, high technology space which can be subdivided to suit operations such as financial or marketing service centres, ebusiness or hot-desks to meet the requirements of a remote corporate operations. The Centre, I understand, will contain conference facilities and meeting rooms and administrative and secretarial back-up is also being provided” said the Minister.

“It is vital for Ireland to have a strong indigenous enterprise sector. But we cannot import indigenous enterprises, nor can we conjure them from thin air. It is entrepreneurs, and they alone, who create businesses. We must do all we can to foster a supportive climate for enterprise creation. This Community Enterprise Centre is an example of such efforts. The task now is for entrepreneurs living in Kells and its environs to meet the challenge and to embark on a difficult, but rewarding, career”

Concluding, the Minister said, “I would like to remind all those with a business idea they would like to develop that Enterprise Ireland, the County Enterprise Board, FÁS and Meath County Council work closely with local businesses in developing entrepreneurship in the County. Staff in the agencies are available to help potential entrepreneurs develop commercial business plans for start-up companies and hopefully these companies, in turn, will become the drivers of the future”.

ENDS/ETE 1575