The Service Level Agreement between Enterprise Ireland and each Local Authority in respect of the delivery of services via the Local Enterprise Offices provides for the establishment of an Evaluation and Approvals Committee in each Local Enterprise Office area.
The purpose of the Evaluation and Approvals Committee is to evaluate and approve, defer or reject Feasibility, Priming, Business Expansion and Agile projects being considered for financial support by their Local Enterprise Office.
The Appeals Process can be invoked by a grant applicant where the Local Enterprise Office Evaluation and Approval Committee has rejected their project proposal. Within seven working days from the date of the Evaluation & Approvals Committee, the Local Enterprise Office will advise the client the basis for their proposal rejection and advise the client of their right to appeal. This written communication will outline the specific reasons for rejection and will inform the client that in the event of an appeal that the issues that prevented the application from being approved will have to be addressed to the satisfaction of the National Appeals Panel.
The grant applicant must submit their appeal in writing through their Local Enterprise Office within four working weeks of being advised of their grant rejection.
The grounds of the appeal and any additional information in respect of the rejected proposal should be acknowledged by the Local Enterprise Office.
Following acknowledgement of the appeal, the appealed proposal will be referred by the Local Enterprise Office to the National Appeals Panel for consideration.
The National Appeals Panel consists of:
- Enterprise Ireland Regional Director who shall be Chairperson
- Head of Enterprise
- Independent business person from the Network of Evaluation & Approvals Committees
No person who has had a role in the decision under appeal, or who works in the Local Enterprise Office whose rejection of a proposal is under appeal, may sit on the National Appeals Panel and to overcome this a substitute panel is in place.
The National Appeals Panel will endeavour to review appeals projects within two months of receiving the appeal documentation.
It should be noted that this decision of the National Appeals committee is final and there is no further process.
