Cabinet gives NDRC one-year reprieve

Irish Independent

3 hours ago

In 2024, the Department of Communications had decided to stop giving the programme an annual grant of €3.5m when the current contract ends in November, which was likely to lead to its closure. The decision was widely criticised, with 200 entrepreneurs writing an open letter to the Government calling for it to be reversed.
Set up in 2006 as a collaboration between the State and the private sector, the NDRC has been run for the last five years by Dogpatch Labs and four regional partners.
Today the Minister for Enterprise, Peter Burke, and the Minister for Communications, Patrick O'Donovan, announced that the Government had approved an extension of the NDRC with the current service provider, Dogpatch Labs, and that it will continue to give supports to early-stage digital enterprises until the end of 2026.
Enterprise Ireland is planning to support 1,000 new start-ups by 2029, the Government announcement said, and will launch a successor National Accelerator Platform in 2026. This platform is in an advanced stage of development, and 'will reflect the new and evolving needs of founders, enhance sectoral diversification and international connectivity'.
Mr O'Donovan said that NDRC had been a high-performing support for digital start-ups, providing mentoring, training and investments, and helping with the creation of high-value jobs.
The Enterprise Minister, Mr Burke, added that the decision would ensure continuity of service, and provide a stable foundation for the long-terms successor being developed by Enterprise Ireland.
'We must continue to back the global ambition of Irish-founded innovation-led start-ups, particularly in a challenging global economic climate,' he said. 'To do so, my Department through Enterprise Ireland will develop a system-wide approach that accelerates start-up growth, internationalisation, and scaling.'
The decision is intended to provide certainty to firms that have been helped by the NDRC, and to ensure there is no interruption in State support for the digital sector.
An independent review of the NDRC, submitted to the Department of Communications in June 2024 but only published in December, was overwhelmingly positive about its operation.
The Department had commissioned Indecon to examine whether Dogpatch's contract should be extended for another two years. The consultants concluded that Dogpatch Labs should get a two-year extension, as the evidence pointed to 'substantive achievement of the NDRC's strategic objectives' between late 2020 and the end of 2022.
'The analysis also found satisfactory outputs and outcomes, as well as improvements compared to the previous operator,' said the Indecon report, which was received last June but only posted on gov.ie almost six months later.