'Seeing other women in powerful roles is invaluable' - Helen McEntee

The Minister for Justice and Meath TD Helen McEntee told an audience of over 100 women from Meath and Louth who gathered for National Women’s Enterprise Day, that, “to learn and grow from each other is the most important part of the day.”

The joint event organised by Meath and Louth Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) also heard the Minister say that networking was one of the most important supports available from the LEOs and other organisations that support business.

It was the first in person NWED since 2019 and while that feels like a long time ago and it has been a challenging few years, the Minister said that, “businesses and women in particular looking to get into business, has grown over those years.”

In Meath there were 165 applications approved for the Trading Online Voucher last year and 421 new jobs created. There are 1509 employed by 277 small enterprises.

“What that tells me is that people are still engaging, people are still looking at what opportunities they can avail of and in particular so many of you in this room, you have not just survived but you are continuing to thrive in what has been a very challenging, very dynamic and a very changing environment.”

She credited the supports from the Local Enterprise Offices and the teams in them, for their role saying, “I want to take this opportunity to commend all of the teams right across Louth and Meath for the huge amount of work you have done particularly throughout the pandemic.”

She said the vast majority of people working in the LEO offices nationwide are women and, “I think women seeing other women in such powerful and significant roles (and) supporting each other as well, has been hugely beneficial and hugely supportive for people.”

“I just want to acknowledge the incredibly important role the Local Enterprise Offices have in supporting women in business. The saying ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’, I think when you walk into these offices and see these powerful women, and men as well, it is really, really valuable.”

The Minister listed some of the many programmes and supports provided by the Local Enterprise Offices and the Government, including financial ones, and commented that, “I think one of the most important aspects of the work the Local Enterprise Offices do, (and) all of the various different organisations, it is actually these type of network events; it is being able to meet with each other, being able to share each other’s experiences, learn from each other and lift each other up.”

In her closing comments, Minister McEntee said, “to have such wonderful, inspirational, powerful women on the panel here, is certainly an inspiration for me and I am sure it will be inspirational for each and every one of you here.”

She introduced the panel of speakers – Marita Collier of Drummond House Garlic, Sinead Crowther of Soothing Solutions, Shona McManus, chief executive officer and owner of Osborne and Lavina McGahon, business coach, mentor and programme manager of Thrive4Women.

The MC was expert retail strategist Miriam Simons who shared her insights, challenges and opportunities for business in the future and advised that two major global trends are around sustainability and digitalisation.

Finally, commenting on the success of the event, Lorna Cooney, Senior Enterprise Development Officer with the LEO Meath said “today’s event provided an excellent opportunity for female entrepreneurs in the region to meet up in-person to share their experiences and support each other. For many of them it was their first in-person networking event since we emerged from the lock-downs. It was great to hear how many of them availed of LEO supports throughout the pandemic to help pivot their business and have now come back stronger as a result. It was also heartening to see the absolute resilience of these business leaders and their determination to sustain and create jobs for the local economy and their ability to spot opportunities in times of adversity.”