Mr. Sean O'Sullivan:

Our hope is that we do not send our children abroad for their opportunities but that we grow the opportunities here. That is what creating a successful start-up community is all about. The idea is that we have in place the best opportunity for our sons and daughters to start companies in this climate and, furthermore, that Ireland becomes a beacon for people from throughout the world in the sense that they would come here to start businesses.

The third area that the committee asked about was the area of JobBridge and why we recommend that JobBridge is grown by a factor of ten. The last time I checked there were approximately 5,000 people on the JobBridge programme out of approximately 400,000 on the live register. I imagine the committee members know the numbers better than I do. When I grew up, for several years we were on the welfare system in the United States and therefore I am appreciative of the safety net that I had in those years. However, I am also perfectly aware that no one wants to be in that safety net and that people actually want to have an opportunity to do something rather than simply receive something. For what people get, they also need to do and create. It is not good enough to get a handout and expect more of a handout. If I get a handout then, as a human being, I need to do something in return or in service for that. JobBridge is an opportunity for people who are receiving benefits to work for the benefit of those benefits, not only for the benefit of the benefits but also for the benefit of themselves. It is of help to them to get on the career ladder, to get on the first rung and to have the opportunities to climb up that ladder step by step. From that viewpoint, it is far more objectionable to me, as a past welfare recipient, to be given a benefit without having a job associated with it or to be given a benefit while sitting at home. These can trap me in my environment where I grow to be dependent on the State forever, while a better way is to help me to leverage myself, my talents and my work to try to make an earning for myself and make a contribution to society. It is a mistake to view JobBridge as anything but an approved status for people who are on the live register.