The Thurles Community Enterprise Centre Ltd. - a project being driven forward by Thurles Chamber of Commerce through members Councillor Seamus Hanafin, Anne Fitzpatrick and John O'Shaughnessy - will be situated at the Tipperary Institute and will draw on supports offered by the TI and the Limerick Institute of Technology through synergies formulated as part of the move.
The centre was originally mooted for the Mill Road through an alliance with Thurles Town Council. However, following further discussions and meetings involving the three members and the Tipperary Institute, it was reconfigured to be included in the TI campus at the Racecourse Road. This opens up further business advice, mentoring and networking possibilities for those who chose to operate from the new state-of-the-art facility which will be 1,100 square meters in size and will cater for up to fifty people in thirteen different bays. And, there is general agreement that having the Centre located at the TI is far more suitable and much more beneficial to everybody.
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"This is great news for Thurles and for Mid Tipperary because it will be the first of it's kind in the area. There is something similar in Rearcross but the Thurles Centre will be different in that any new business will be welcome on board - the Rearcross one focuses on food development. We have been looking for foreign direct investment (FDI) jobs for the area for some time and they are just not coming. Now is the time for us to look after local jobs and indigenous business and to create an environment for them to survive, grow and expand. It has to be about encouraging local business now and that's what this new facility is all about," said Councillor Hanafin who added that a management committee will be established to look after the running of the facility.
Funding for the Centre will come from the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise Ireland, the County Enterprise Board and the TI/LIT who will also be assisting with capital costs. Councillor Hanafin was in a position to access funding through Enterprise Ireland and County Enterprise Board schemes - the last of their kind - and was delighted to be able to bring the project to life under the Chamber of Commerce umbrella.
Chamber President Pat Hayes said that the centre would not have gotten the go ahead without the efforts of their three members and he paid tribute to them for their efforts over the last eighteen months. He added, "We are delighted to be promoting the project because it will create jobs in Thurles. It is great to see something moving in the right direction to help bring employment back to the area and we are thrilled that the TI is coming on board as well. This is very good for the town and is a good, positive indication of what can be achieved when people come together," he said.
However, now that the centre will be linked with the TI, the plan is to engage in a scheme similar to the LEAP programme in Limerick - the Limerick Enterprise Acceleration Project - and the TI will be providing supports in the coming months with courses in Marketlink and Start Your Own Business coming on board. Academic support will be very forthcoming and it is hoped that the Entreprise Centre will form an integral part of what the TI is all about. Formerly named the Tipperary Rural and Business Development Institute (TRBDI) - the new Centre will help the TI remain true to the business development end of it's original brief.
"This is different to anything that has been done before because it is locally driven by the Chamber of Commerce, is business supported and yet has the expertise of LIT and TI to fall back on as well. LIT have put 100 businesses through it's books already under their programme and I have asked the question time and again, will this create jobs. Each time I have emphatically and categorically been told, yes it will," said Cllr Hanafin who has been driving the project forward with Anne Fitzpatrick and John O'Shaughnessy for over two years now.
Dr Maria Hinfelaar, President of LIT added, "We are really excited about this project because a number of parties have come together to make it happen. The idea of developing an Enterprise Centre to encourage anyone in start-up mode by providing space is a very good one and it will provide opportunities to people from all backgrounds including graduates from the TI, thereby having a spin-in and spin-out affect. There will be no barriers to entry and we have a lot of experience in this field which we hope will be of benefit to everyone concerned," she said.
Michael O'Connell, CEO of the Tipp Institute added that the Centre will be the perfect example of "joined up thinking" with a number of groups coming together to see it through."We have the education institution and an enterprise centre working side by side and the hope would be that we can provide educational supports to people, while the centre might be able to provide space for some of our students to perhaps develop their ideas as well. We feel that we can all learn from the experience of LIT and I suppose this will be one of the benefits of the integration process which is underway," Mr O'Connell said.
Anyone interested in starting a business will be given the opportunity to avail of non cost prohibitive facilities at the Centre and there will be avenues for expansion also with some units larger than others. The facilities can cater from anything from one job businesses up to larger enterprises and will welcome entrepreneurs with open arms. It will be a modern affordable start-up facility and construction will begin before the end of 2010, we understand.