Minister pledges €7m to rejuvenate local businesses

The Minister for Enterprise has announced that he is to pump an extra seven million euro into building local businesses.

The investment will go towards developing community centres which run schemes for entrepreneurs.

The announcement will extend the 2002 Enterprise Ireland Community Enterprise Centre and will aim at developing areas which have suffered major job losses, and have difficulty sustaining local businesses.

The money will be spent on creating a number of new local initiatives over the next few years.

Minister Micheál Martin says it will help combat rural decline by focusing on new types of industry and technology that will create new jobs and attract people into these previously under-developed localities.

He said it will also help businesses that have the potential to develop but have not had an opportunity to do so thus far.