The Business Toolkit – Planning your support package for 2027 and beyond 

🗓 Tuesday, 10th November 2026
🕔 7:30am - 10:00am
📍 The Talbot Hotel, Carlow, R93 Y504

Running a business asks a lot of you. Costs keep climbing, technology keeps moving, energy bills need managing and customers expect more than they did a year ago, all while you are trying to grow and stay competitive.

You do not have to work it out on your own. Carlow and Laois Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) have practical supports and grants available that are already helping businesses like yours cut costs, work smarter, and plan for what is next. County Carlow Chamber and Laois Chamber Alliance provide valuable networks and help businesses like yours connect and become more visible to your customers. 

Why attend

• Learn about practical ways to improve efficiency and productivity, and free up time you are currently losing to inefficient processes.

• Understand the Lean, Green and Digital grants and supports available through your Local Enterprise Office, and how to access them.

• Learn how digital tools and AI can support real growth, explained in terms that make sense for a small business.

• Find opportunities to cut waste, reduce energy use and lower your running costs.

• Hear directly from LEO clients who have been through these programmes, and what changed as a result.

• Leave with a clear view of the support package your business could put in place for 2027.

• Meet fellow business owners, the LEO teams from Carlow and Laois, and representatives from County Carlow Chamber and Laois Chamber Alliance over breakfast.

Keynote: John Lonergan

We are delighted to welcome John Lonergan as our keynote speaker. John served in the Irish Prison Service for more than 42 years, including over 22 years as Governor of Mountjoy Prison and almost four years as Governor of Portlaoise. His autobiography, The Governor, was published in 2010.

John is one of Ireland's most respected speakers on leadership, resilience and personal responsibility. He believes that real change is never forced on people, but comes about through dialogue, consent and agreement, and that we manage it best when we stay in touch with our own humanity. For any owner or manager leading a team through a demanding period, his talk offers a genuinely different way to think about the job.

Your host for the morning: Fiona Sweeney

The event will be hosted by Fiona Sweeney, CEO and founder of Green Button Consulting & Coaching. A former senior corporate leader with more than 23 years' experience, Fiona now works at the meeting point of performance, behaviour change and wellbeing, helping people and organisations create the conditions for healthier, more productive working lives. She will keep the conversation practical and moving throughout the morning.

Expert insight on Lean, Green and Digital

Alongside the keynote, you will hear from three consultants who work with Irish SMEs every day:

• Lean: Gordon Naughton, Tactive: How removing unnecessary tasks and inefficient processes frees up time for the work that actually adds value, and how to build a culture where continuous improvement becomes second nature.

• Green: Cathal Flaherty, Truly Sustainable: Practical, achievable ways to reduce energy use, costs and carbon emissions, drawing on his work as a Certified Energy Manager and SEAI Registered Energy Auditor on the Laois LEO panel.

• Digital: John O'Shanahan, LeanBPI: How small businesses can adopt digital tools and AI in ways that are affordable, practical and matched to how they really work, at whatever stage of the journey they are at.

Hear from businesses like yours

The most convincing case for any support is a business owner who has used it. Across two fireside chats you will hear from LEO clients who will talk about what they set out to improve in their own businesses through the Lean, Green and Digital supports, and the difference they made.

A networking morning, not just a talk

Breakfast gives you time to meet other owners and managers from across Carlow and Laois, compare notes and build useful connections. It is also your chance to talk directly to the LEO teams from both counties about the supports that could benefit your own business.

Who should attend

This morning is for you if you are a:

• Small business owner or manager

• Start-up preparing for growth

• Manufacturing, retail, or service business

• Business looking to become more efficient, more sustainable or more digital

Book Here