Professor Tom Cooney:

A number of studies have been carried out by various European organisations on this. EUROSTAT carried out a particular study in which it found out that the attitude of the Irish towards entrepreneurship is strong and positive. However, if it is so strong and positive and if we believe in a culture of entrepreneurship, why are people not starting up their own businesses and why are we getting such poor results from the global entrepreneurship monitor, GEM, studies?

Much of it came down to two things. The risk reward element was not strong enough and therefore if they were going to take the risk, things like capital gains tax, the marginal rate of tax and the fact that if the business failed they could not claim benefit, whereas all the employees could, had to be considered. Those safety nets were not available to them. The stigma of failure was rather strong. Most notable was the perception that access to finance would be rather difficult. There is a significant gap between intention and desire and the ability to start up.