Minister Richmond visits Local Enterprise Office in Cork City

06th April 2023

Minister of State for Employment Affairs and Retail Business, Neale Richmond T.D., was in Cork city last Friday (31/3/23) where he met with Cork City Council officials and staff of the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) team as well as some of their client companies.

Minister Richmond was welcomed to City Hall by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Deirdre Forde and Director of Services, Fearghal Reidy.  He also met with the LEO Cork City team to discuss their ongoing work and was given an outline of current activities in the city.

The Minister then met a with number of LEO Cork City client companies to discuss their businesses. David Walsh is CEO and founder of Smartroutes, an award-winning company that creates route planning software.  He explained how their route optimization software reduces cost per delivery by at least 33% versus manual route planning. The software allows you to factor in complex variables like time windows, load balancing, zonal territories and even vehicle variables to avoid missed deliveries and deadlines.

Minister Richmond then spoke to Jade Hogan, one of the co-owners of Mr Kite Designs, who outlined how their contemporary homewares company designs and produces high-end homeware products.  They represented the LEO Cork City at Showcase 2023 in the RDS.

Pratheesh Chameth, owner of Capisso explained how his company brings together cloud, artificial intelligence and advanced automation to create a seamless combination of software and service to suit the needs of accountants, self-employed and small businesses.

Finally the Minister spoke with Rom Hyde the owner of HydeBeam, a company who has developed a canal dock locking system that allows for significant risk management on the tens of thousands of kilometres of canals throughout Europe and the UK.

Minister Richmond said:

“I was delighted to visit the Local Enterprise Office in the city. The LEO network is hugely important in supporting and mentoring local businesses and the importance of the work they do was outlined time and again in my conversations with the LEO clients. I would urge anyone who has started a business, or is considering doing so, to engage with their local LEO as a priority. Their wealth of knowledge and support has made a huge difference to countless businesses across Cork and indeed the country, and can make a huge difference to any new business or entrepreneur.”

Dr. Niall O’Keeffe, Head of Enterprise, LEO Cork City:

 “It has been a challenging few years for companies of all sizes but the resilience shown by businesses in Cork city is remarkable. We are delighted that Minister Richmond had the opportunity of meet some of these businesses this morning.   LEO Cork City supports small / micro at every stage of their business journey and we encourage them to contact us to learn more about the supports we provide in the areas of business advice, business mentoring, training and development, and financial assistance (which is subject to qualifying criteria).