Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

They are growing. They are globally ambitious now. Combilift is a good case. It recently committed to a greenfield site and will increase its numbers by 200. We are seeing more and more of those companies. That is part of it. The other part of it, as the Senator rightly says, is start-ups. To be fair to my Department, 70% of our money goes to Irish businesses and 30% to foreign ones, so far and away the majority of our money goes to small start-ups, growth phasing, and scaling. To listen to the announcements, one might not think that was the ratio, but much of what we have done in the last while is aimed at start-ups. The tax relief available to start-ups has now been extended to all sectors. We are unique in Ireland in having competitive feasibility, competitive start, high-potential start-ups and equity investment from the State. One will not find that anywhere in Europe. We have 26 incubators in every institute of technology; we have the local enterprise network in 31 counties; we are reviewing the mentoring programmes; we have stripped out company law to make it much easier to set up a company, so that those start-ups have a much cleaner ability to form companies; and they have tax concessions for the first three years. Much has been done between microfinance and the young entrepreneurs competition last year, which received a staggering 1,100 responses. There is a great deal happening and people are seeing that Ireland is a good place to start a business but maybe it is too well-kept a secret and we should be promoting it more within-----