Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Seanad Public Consultation Committee

Social Entrepreneurship: Discussion

12:40 pm

Mr. Paul O'Hara:

Two of the most celebrated innovations from the previous Government were the smoking ban and the plastic bag tax, both of which originally came from the citizens' sector. However, legislators enabled them to become such successful nationwide innovations.

There are an unbelievable amount of solutions around. My question is what are the things for which Senators will be able to legislate from the solutions that exist within Ashoka's portfolio and Social Entrepreneurs Ireland's portfolio? What will this Government's legacy be to match the smoking ban? I would hope it will be easy to emulate that. There is a potential partnership between social entrepreneurs and Members of the Oireachtas because, to an extent, this is a closed shop. For a social entrepreneur to have a champion within the Oireachtas could have huge value. I would like to discuss that a bit more later on.

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