17 February 2000

 

LAUNCH OF STEP UP II PROGRAMME

"We must have 'E' for easy access to e-mail and e-commerce for small businesses," Gerry Loughran, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, said in Londonderry today.

Mr Loughran was speaking at the launch of the Step Up II programme, a cross-border initiative part-funded under the EU Interreg programme which seeks to help companies, especially small companies, in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland to integrate the new technologies into their day to day business.

Mr Loughran said: "Both parts of Ireland have great innovative potential and flair for business. But unfortunately we seem to lag behind some parts of Europe and the USA in taking advantage of the new technologies. We clearly need to improve our performance in this area.

"On their own, entrepreneurs may not be able to solve all the business problems they encounter, but with access to information through the Internet, they are much more likely to succeed."

Mr Loughran said his own Department was taking urgent steps to help redress the imbalance. In particular, he referred to the Information Age Initiative which was established in the wake of the Strategy 2010, the recent review of economic development and to LEDU's Ednet project which has linked over 1100 companies in Northern Ireland to the worldwide web.

Congratulating those involved, Mr Loughran said: "Projects such as Step Up are providing invaluable support, not only in helping companies link into the new technologies, but also in building partnerships between companies, Government agencies and elected representatives in a productive and meaningful way."

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

1. The Step Up project is part funded under the Economic Development Measure of the Northern Ireland/Ireland Interreg Programme 1995-1999.

2. The project assists SMEs in the border areas in relation to their IT and telecommunication needs by conducting IT and business audits of current systems and advising how these need to be modified to become more competitive.

3. The project received £327,775 of ERDF monies under Phase I; the Phase II project will receive ERDF grant of £121,534.

4. The project is run by a consortium involving service providers, Eircom and BT, development agencies Forbairt and Udaras na Gaeltachta with support from LEDU, and IT specialists Gcom Teoranta, Nistar and Western Connect. The project co-ordinator is the North West Institute of Further and Higher Education.

5. Under Phase I of the project 63 companies were initially selected for assessment, with 27 picked as suitable for implementation stage. Under the Phase II project 40 new companies will be targeted with 15 of these getting full hardware and software support.