Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Connie and I had complementary skills. The recommendation in regard to getting women to work with other people is based on our experience. It is a lonely station if one is working alone but when we had challenging problems we were able to talk them over.

Attitudes have improved since I was growing up, when an entrepreneur was regarded as the last career people should hope for. Permanent, pensionable and safe jobs as teachers, civil servants or nurses were preferred. The policy paper recommends that we should encourage people in middle management or at the midpoint of their careers in the public sector to go into the private sector. The Clerk of the Seanad, Ms Deirdre Lane, would, for example, make a brilliant entrepreneur given all the experience she has gained from running the Seanad. We should encourage more people to take that risk.

I was lucky when I was in secondary school that we had very good industries, one of which was Irish Ropes.

The threat was that if one did not do well in one's leaving certificate, one would end up in the office of Irish Ropes.

It is really important that we introduce entrepreneurial learning, which is a Fianna Fáil recommendation, through the primary and secondary school system, so that we develop a real entrepreneurial culture. I have no doubt we have changed but we still have a long way to go to get people to consider becoming self-employed and, in doing so, giving people jobs. Some 250,000 people still do not have a job and one in four young people does not have a job. The more people who start up businesses, the better for the future.

As I have said many times in the House, I saw with my own eyes the transformation in a young person who got and held on to a job. The person began to walk straight, was self-confident and was smiling. Not only was the person getting paid but the person had social interaction everyday as a result of meeting people instead of being at home lying in bed or watching television. One man whose son had not been able to get a job for years told me he would go to mass every morning to pray that his son would be able to hold on to the job, although in later years, he went on to get a very big job in An Post. He got experience on the ground.

I compliment the Minister of State who I know is very genuine about this and I thank him for being the envoy to the network.