Cork County Council's Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Cork North & West has opened applications for a Female Entrepreneurs Management Development Programme, running across eight online and in-person sessions from 6 October at the Firgrove Hotel, Mitchelstown. The programme is limited to 15 places and targets women who own or manage small businesses employing between one and ten people across the North and West Cork catchment.

Details of the programme, confirmed by Cork County, cover strategy, finance, marketing, sales, public relations, pitching and business planning, with the subsidised fee set at €60 per participant, including training materials, refreshments and one-to-one mentoring.

Cork County Council, which approved a €526m budget for 2026, is the local authority for County Cork and delivers business supports through its network of Local Enterprise Offices. LEO Cork North & West covers towns including Mallow, Fermoy, Charleville, Mitchelstown, Kanturk, Bantry, Clonakilty and Skibbereen, and restricts eligibility to business owners or partners who are trading, or intend to trade, within 12 months.

The structural driver behind the programme is the persistent gap in structured management training available to women running very small businesses, with LEO Cork North & West capping places at 15 to preserve peer networking rather than scaling the course to reach more applicants.

Cllr. Bernard Moynihan, Mayor of the County of Cork, said the programme "is a valuable opportunity for women entrepreneurs to gain new skills, build connections and grow their businesses," adding that Cork County Council is "proud to support initiatives that empower women in business and strengthen our local economy."

The programme excludes managers or employees of small businesses, restricting eligibility strictly to owners and directors, and Cork County Council has said it reserves the right to refuse applications it considers unsuitable for the cohort.

For the sector, the North Cork programme confirms that local authority enterprise offices continue to treat small, cohort-based training as the primary vehicle for building management capability among women-led micro businesses, rather than opening places to unlimited numbers.

Source: corkcoco.ie / thecork.ie