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Dundalk Leader 8th8th JulyJuly 2026 Dundalk Leader 2026
By Paul Byrne
TAKING CARE
LOCAL Enterprise Office Louth is the primary agency in County Louth dedicated to the development of micro-enterprise. Continuing on from the Louth County Enterprise Board which existed for over twenty years, the Local Enterprise Office and its experienced staff has provided advice, counselling, training, finance and resource development support to well over 4,000 local enterprises. If you are in business or even at the very early stages of thinking about setting up, Louth Enterprise Board recommend that you should call them to arrange a friendly chat about how they may be able to support you. They are happy for you to come into their offices in the town hall on Crowe St, or if it suits better they can arrange to meet you at your premises. The Office exists to stimulate economic and entrepreneurial activity in County Louth, and to develop local indigenous enterprise potential in the micro-business sector. Local Enterprise Offices’ seek to harness collective effort across a broad spectrum of the local community with a view to generating a local economy of real strength and durability, through growth in employment and wealth as well as improved competitiveness. In order to achieve its objectives, the Local Enterprise Office Louth has a range of support instruments, both financial and non-financial, at its disposal to assist viable proposals for business start-up and expansion projects. The specific mission of the Local Enterprise Office is to: Stimulate and support the creation of economically sustainable niche micro-enterprise opportunities in the manufacturing, internationally traded services and highly innovative local traded services sectors through the promotion of an enterprise culture; Provide information, advice, mentoring, management development and business counselling; Initiate the formation of partnerships and alliances; Foster local economic development. The Local Enterprise Office Louth has initiated a number of focused support programmes for groups within the SME sector – among them a Women’s Business programme, a programme for Creative Enterprises, Food sector and Craft Business support structure along with a business Networking programme. Niall Gallagher is the Senior Enterprise Development Officer for Louth County Council and recently he sat down with the Dundalk Leader to outline what exactly the function of his office is. Niall, originally from Dublin, studied Economics in DCU before starting his career in Local Government in Meath County Council working in Corporate Services before moving to the Local Enterprise Office as a staff officer in 2017. He was in that role for five years before taking the opportunity to join
Louth County Council at the end of 2021. Two years ago he was given the role of Senior Enterprise Development Officer for Louth. According to Niall his main message to any local business is that everything starts with a conversation with his office. “The main role I have and I suppose the drum that I would always keep banging to people at events or any functions I attend is that everything starts with a conversation with ourselves. And the changes that have happened over the last few years have helped to facilitate the process of getting help for businesses quickly. For example if somebody comes into me and they want to start a business and they might have a planning query I can link them in with the planning section of the council or if they want to talk about rates I can direct them to the Finance section of the council so to be able to act in that capacity is a massive help. WHO DO LOUTH ENTERPRISE HELP? “Fundamentally we help out businesses who have ten employees or less. In the past it was pretty much a guillotine situation where there were no supports for any business with over ten employees but it’s evolved to the point where there are some supports for businesses with up to 50 employees. For businesses with over 50 employees we can still have a conversation with them and give them advice and point them in the right direction for supports so it’s not as if the door is closed altogether for bigger businesses. Our core aspects of support would be training, mentoring, productivity support and those kind of things for businesses. Our core grant aid would be for small businesses that meet the eligibility criteria but again we are not going to refuse anyone. Everyone who comes on will get something or be signposted to something by ourselves. EFFORTS TO MAKE APPLICATIONS EASIER “A lot of the grants, as with any public sector grants will have hoops to jump through and considerable application forms to go through. Our approach would always be and one thing that I’d be very strong on would be holding the hand of people through that process. Particularly with the newer grants which have a lot of questions in them, I would go out to the client or with the applicant and sit down with them for an hour and a half, get the form done, get that in and try and strengthen it as possible. The Department are going through a process of simplifying forms at the moment so that will probably create some teething issues initially because there’s probably some aspects of those forms that need to be reviewed on an ongoing basis to see how they go for the first three months in the battlefield so to speak. CAN A START UP BUSINESS GET HELP? “Whatever county you are in, be that Louth or wherever, come in and have a conversation with us. The only thing it costs is a bit of time. And look if people can’t get into us we will always facilitate calls whether that be on the phone or on-
Niall Gallagher Senior Enterprise Development Officer for Louth. line or whatever the person needs and whatever suits them. That’s the strength of the Local enterprise Office. That it has that strength to be a bit dynamic and to try and help small businesses and point them in the right direction. The vast majority of people that come into us come in with just an idea. Like of course we work with established businesses who know what they are at but 70% of people come in with just an idea or they might have drawn up a rough business plan. “What I find consistently with people trying to start a business, a lot of them have maybe given up a job or maybe recently lost a job and they are trying to create something that they own and that they have control over. It can be a lonely place to be and even if you just want to come in and shoot the breeze or bounce ideas of somebody we encourage you to come in and engage. We are approachable and engaging and that is our biggest strength. BREXIT CHALLEGES “The last decade has seen quite a few challenges and we have seen many once in a lifetime painful things have happened between Brexit, Covid or different Geopolitical issues whether that be the Ukraine War or the Middle East. Probably one thing that the state hasn’t been great at is advertising what grants or supports have come out. So you’ll have the Department or whatever Minister is in charge at the time coming out with a new support or grant and nobody knows about it so it’s up to us in the Local Enterprise Office to get out there in the towns and villages around the county to ensure that businesses are aware that these things exist. “One thing in particular as part of the last budget was support in terms of the rising cost of energy, the rising costs of
businesses and the rising costs of living. That was a huge issue. There was an Energy Efficiency Grant brought out that was perfect for businesses in that boat and we had to relay that information to local businesses and ensure they knew about it. LINKS WITH DUNDALK CHAMBER “We would have a lot of partnership with the Dundalk Chamber so like in terms of how we are structured we are completely different organisations but they are a key partner for us. In terms of the Networking and us taking advantage of opportunities to let businesses know about grants that are available to them we would work with the Chamber to help spread that message. They would give us a platform at their various events to talk to their members and tell them what is available for them. From the Chamber’s perspective they can get their clientele linked in for supports from the Local Enterprise Office. So it’s a good two way relationship. We work with Drogheda Chamber as well and we are currently increasing our connection with the Ardee traders as well. CROSS BORDER LINKS “There is a lot of Cross Border work with Newry, Mourne and Down as well. Obviously in terms of our remit it has to be a Louth based business so it’s not as if a business in that area could get supports from ourselves unless they were going to relocate to Louth. Borders are a legal reality but it’s a regional approach we would try to look at and we would really use the M1 corridor which runs all the way up to Belfast. So anything we can do within the limitations and restrictions of our remit as a County Louth based organisation that can support the growth of the M1 corridor as a whole we will always engage with them.
Louth Enterprise Office te Seating L-R – Niall Gallag FIGURES ON JOBS CREATED VIA LEO “We do an Annual Employment Survey so essentially that is contacting directly our existing client portfolio. Any new businesses that we would engage with throughout the year. One of our key metrics would be creating jobs and the fundamental idea would be asking if we can give grant aid or soft supports that would end up in somebody being employed in that company. Often that’s just the person that set up the business. Can they make something viable where they can employ themselves essentially. Or can they get a second person etc. So we would get those figures on an annual basis and we’d be measuring how much growth is there in the business. BENEFITS AND THREATS OF AI With AI transition it is very interesting to see where those growth figures in jobs go over the next three years or so. Will there be in reality a decrease of jobs for humans or is AI just helping the business to become more efficient. Say there’s a job in drops, maybe the business is actually more efficient and making more money with some transitions to AI that they did to make them more lean but obviously we are in the business of creating employment so it’s a tricky one to navigate. “It’s a funny one. In terms of the training that we do for businesses, anything that we do on AI Integration fills up immediately. We don’t need to market it or advertise it at all. The level of interest in businesses wanting to educate themselves on AI is incredible. It’s like the train is moving on the tracks and we’re struggling to learn about the train but it’s still moving and it’s moving at speed. We are all learning together. As a Local Enterprise Office, particularly based in
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Ancill ary report funded by Coimisiún na Meá