About Us

Who are we?

The Model County Enterprise Group CLG is a non-profit organisation committed to supporting local business in county Wexford.

Established in 1999 as the Enniscorthy Enterprise & Technology Centre, now the Model County Enterprise Group, we have over 20 years’ experience in supporting entrepreneurship in county Wexford.

What do we do?

Host workshops and training to help individuals become employment-ready
Provide affordable office space equip with ample facilities for both new and established businesses
Offer mentoring and industry advice to newcomers
Provide incubation space for innovative start-ups

Where do we do it?

The Enniscorthy Enterprise and Technology Centre (EETC)

The EETC is a purpose-built premises located just outside of Enniscorthy town. Equipped with office units of various sizes, excellent facilities (including free high-speed broadband) and passionate staff with industry experience ready to help you and your business succeed.

The EETC is an important part of the business network in Enniscorthy, with many of the regions’ new and exciting companies located here. Our tenants work alongside one another and benefit from peer to peer learning and networking.

Find out more about how the EETC can help your business here: www.eetc.ie

The Hatch Lab

The Hatch Lab is a Tech Incubator space located in Gorey. The facility first opened in 2017 and is a modern and spacious building designed specifically to accommodate technology companies and start-ups.

A client of the Hatch Lab would benefit from start-up incubation space, networking opportunities, mentoring & advice, a large board room or individual pods, technical expert talks and pitches to potential investors.

The full-time residents are made up of start-ups, me-too businesses in the ICT sector, and co-working individuals.

Find out more about the Hatch Lab here: www.thehatchlab.ie

Projects

The Fab Lab

The Fab Lab is a small-scale digital fabrication workshop located at the Enniscorthy Enterprise & Technology Centre. The workshop opened in the centre in 2018 after the Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) approved an allocation of €64,500 of rapid funding to be granted to the project.

Equip with 3D printers, a CNC milling machine, a laser cutting machine, a virtual-reality headset, a handheld 3D scanner and a small electronic assembly & test area, the lab is a county wide initiative designed to make almost anything.

The Fab Lab offers technical prototyping facilities for innovation, invention and learning and is aimed at making 3D design and manufacturing available to the community. In addition to this, the Fab Lab operates a computer aided crafting & design course which offers the opportunity to participants to avail of third level education places in Carlow IT and Waterford IT upon completion of the course.

Our Ethos

The Model County Enterprise Group is a non-profit organisation committed to helping the Enniscorthy District Community.

Our core objectives are to support local start-ups, established businesses and individuals.

We achieve these objectives by providing a sheltered environment and incubation space for vulnerable start-ups to develop their businesses. We offer affordable office space in order to give new and established businesses the best opportunity to reach their potential. We also provide training, support and work placements for individuals to become employment ready.

As well as carrying out our core objectives, we are committed to taking steps towards becoming more sustainable in our business practices. In this way, we would like to set an example for other businesses to adopt more sustainable practices.

We have developed our own 3 pillars of sustainable development which we strive to achieve:

Positive local economic outcomes
Positive social outcomes
Positive environmental outcomes

Positive local economic outcomes

We believe that by providing incubation space for start-ups, affordable workspaces for businesses and training programmes for individuals we can encourage positive local economic outcomes.

In this way, the local economy will have a strong economic asset base which will assist businesses and individuals to reach their potential. Our incubation space will encourage diverse and responsible businesses in the local community leading to positive consequences for the local economy with higher employment opportunities located in Enniscorthy.

Positive social outcomes

We believe that we can support our society by providing a supportive and enabling environment for start-ups and individuals to develop their skills, test their ideas and reach their potential. Through this, we believe that we can foster local activism, participation and capability in people of Enniscorthy.

Positive environmental outcomes

We are committed to improving our sustainability, for example, we have built a community garden and upgraded the facility’s lighting to more efficient systems. We believe that by making small changes to support sustainability we can work towards becoming an example for our tenants and local business as to how they can become more sustainable and encourage long-term improvement for the environment.

Governance

The Model County Enterprise Group is a Company Limited by Guarantee with a Board of Trustees.

Th board’s role is to support the executives of the Model County Enterprise Group in achieving the overall objectives of the group.

The board members are:

Helen Murphy – Head of School of Education & Lifelong Learning, Waterford Institute of Technology.
Bernie Morrissey – Enniscorthy Credit Union.
Iain Wickham – Principal of Enniscorthy Vocational School, WWETB.
Breege Cosgrave – Head of LEO/Economic development Wexford County Council.
Barbara Anne Murphy – Wexford County Council representative.
Jim Hughes – CEO of Innovate
Michael Kehoe – Business Consultant
Brian Fives – Enterprise Ireland Regional Officer
Boyd Scott – Business Consultant

John O'Connor

CEO

Iwona Turnea

Accounts and Administration

James Healy

Training Coordinator

Sarah McKay

Office Administrative Assistant

Our Story

A timeline of important events and achievements of the Model County Enterprise Group CLG.

1999 Formation of company as the Enniscorthy Enterprise and Technology Centre
2001 Funding and Bank Loan secured
2002 Enniscorthy Enterprise & Technology Centre (EETC) opened doors
2002 The first employees of the EETC begin work
2002 Signed Memo of Understanding with WIT
2002 EVC PLC course rent from first floor
2003 WIT single subject modules begin
2003 Centre units full for the first time
2004 Split unit 6 into three offices
2004-2005 First EU funding Blended learning SYOB training course €150,000
2005- 2006 Virtual Incubation Centre (VIC-EU) online training and information portal €400,000
2006-2008 FAS CPD training fund €300,000 and Interreg program €250,000
2009 Centre builds on third floor to support growing companies in the Centre
2008-2011 EETC became Skillnets network centre €350,000 spent on training very little back to EETC.
2012 EVC PLC last course leaves the Centre
2012 Chevron Training leaves the EETC
2014 Sonru grows to 60 staff and leaves the Centre
2014 Got E Fibre on March 2014, changed internet speed
2015 John O’Connor provides consultancy to Wexford County Council for the development of an incubation space in Gorey
2016 EETC is successful in their application of Erasmus KA1 funding
2017 The Hatch Lab opens
2018 Change of organisation name to “The Model County Enterprise Group CLG”
2019 Extension of 3,000 sq. ft. extra in The Hatch Lab

Privacy & Cookie Policy

Privacy

The Model County Enterprise Group CLG is committed to preserving the privacy of all visitors to eetc.ie. This privacy statement relates to our practices in connection with our website. Our organisation fully respects your right to privacy. We will not collect personal information/personal data about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information. By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of your information under the terms of this privacy statement which is in accordance with the Data Protection Bill 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (EU 2016/680).

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