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

I thank the witnesses and appreciate them coming here.

I have a number of questions. Ms Sinnamon has regular meetings with the Minister. If she went in tomorrow and he asked what he could do to get more women into business, what would be the policy measures that he could take or the programmes he could support? On what three items would she say directly to the Minister, "Can you do something on this?" That is my first question.

Second, 23% of Enterprise Ireland's investment is going into female entrepreneurs or business people. What percentage of those are young women? That leads to my next question, which refers to the entrepreneur competition that was held. If I remember correctly, no woman in Kildare got to the final stages. What percentage of women took part in the finals of that competition? Would there be a need - it is a topical issue among us parliamentarians - for a quota system in those competitions where the final would be pure but a certain percentage of women must reach the final stages?

There is the fear of failure in every entrepreneur. What are the comparable rates of failure among male entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurs? Do females have a higher or lower success rate than their male counterparts, if there are any figures on that?