Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In response to Deputy Conaghan’s point, there is an action in the plan on fish processing, with a target of approximately 100 jobs.

It is great that the committee has a major input into this plan. We have talked a lot here about youth entrepreneurship. Will the Minister have some way of measuring the take-up of the micro-finance, and come back to us if it needs to be reformed or refined?

The message about what is available for start-up companies, individuals who might want to set up their own companies, and established companies, is not getting out. Last night I talked to a man who employs 160 people who had only just become aware of JobsPlus and thought it was an excellent idea. We need some form of portal through which an individual or company can find out what is available. We have been hammering on about this for the past two years but there does not seem to be any action on it. If we can do this by the end of the year it will be very beneficial. The large organisation which supplies the man I spoke to last night did not know about JobsPlus. We need to make it possible to access all the information through one portal and get the message out.

Yesterday I was at the Kildare Enterprise student awards ceremony. The innovation and ideas coming from students in transition year and younger students are very exciting. We should also aim to give kids in primary school an idea of entrepreneurship.