Minister Dillon highlights growth potential of Ireland’s digital creative industries
Addressing the closing session of the inaugural summit, the Minister said the quality, innovation, and ambition within Ireland’s creative industries sector present significant opportunities for the country’s future economic development.
Minister Dillon has stated that the government is committed to supporting Ireland’s digital creative industries across the West and North-West while addressing delegates at the EDGE26 Creative Economy Summit in Galway on Thursday.
Speaking to an audience of more than four hundred industry leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, and policymakers, Minister Dillon reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to supporting the growth of digital creative industries across the West and North-West of Ireland.
Addressing the closing session of the inaugural summit, the Minister said the quality, innovation, and ambition within Ireland’s creative industries sector present significant opportunities for the country’s future economic development.
He congratulated Niamh Costello and the team at CREW (Creative Enterprise West) for their vision in delivering EDGE26, highlighting the importance of supporting homegrown talent, enterprise, and innovation.
“EDGE26 highlights the scale of opportunity within Ireland’s creative industries as a driver of innovation, intellectual property creation, and globally scalable enterprise. Ireland is well-positioned to strengthen its international standing across digital creative sectors, including games, animation, immersive technologies, and creative tech,” he said.
The Minister also highlighted the sector’s growing contribution to employment, innovation, and regional development, stressing the importance of balanced growth across the country.
“I have great confidence in what the future holds for the digital creative industries in the West and North-West, and beyond,” he said. “Platforms such as EDGE26 play an important role in bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders to strengthen collaboration and support future growth.”
Minister Dillon acknowledged the momentum being created through regional innovation hubs such as CREW in Galway, emphasising the role they play in helping start-ups and creative enterprises scale internationally.
“The Government, through Enterprise Ireland, remains firmly committed to supporting these globally ambitious Irish companies, ensuring they have the capability, connectivity, and support needed to compete and succeed internationally,” he added.
Earlier in the day, CREW launched a landmark report examining the past, present, and future of the digital creative industries sector in the West and North-West of Ireland.
Commissioned by CREW in partnership with UrbanLab at the University of Galway, the whitepaper - From Momentum to Scale: Digital Creative Industries in the West and North-West of Ireland: A Decade of Progress and the Path to 2036 - explores the sector’s development between 2016 and 2026 across Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, and Clare.
The report identified three key challenges facing the sector: limited access to finance, gaps in commercial and market access supports, and uneven regional distribution of opportunities and infrastructure.
The report also outlined seven recommendations aimed at accelerating growth, including strengthening market access, developing sector-specific investment pathways, redesigning skills programmes around commercial and IP capabilities, and implementing a distributed hub-and-network support model.
In addition, further recommendations looked to AI literacy, IP readiness and recognising network infrastructure and intermediary capacity as essential economic infrastructure.
Speaking on the report’s findings, Minister Dillon stated the opportunities within Ireland’s creative industries are clear and increasingly important to the national economy.
“It is obvious that there is an enormous opportunity in Ireland’s creative industries that can grow into international companies, and that matters. It matters to the Government and to the economy.
“The roadmap is being developed, and there is a clear approach, at the government level, to supporting the sector and enabling it to grow,” he added.
EDGE26 took place at Dexcom Stadium in Galway and was hosted by CREW. The event was co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union through the ERDF Northern & Western Regional Programme 2021–2027, supported by Enterprise Ireland, with Atlantic Technological University (ATU) Galway serving as Lead Patron.