Mr. David Walsh:

To address the question on how to create an entrepreneurial culture, the Minister of State mentioned that we should make entrepreneurial studies part of the curriculum at secondary level. While that is important, starting in secondary level is too late. The seeds of entrepreneurship need to be sown around the kitchen table where families talk to each other, thus entrepreneurship becomes the language of families. I firmly believe that entrepreneurship should be taught in primary school because primary schoolchildren have a fantastic relationship with their teachers, there is no exam points race and teachers are very influential.

A great Kerry entrepreneur called Mr. Jerry Kennelly started the outstanding Junior Entrepreneur Programme. My company in Carlow is very fortunate to sponsor the programme and I saw at first hand the real impact it made on young kids and on their thinking. All we were trying to do through the Junior Entrepreneur Programme was to say to young kids aged 11 and 12 to put entrepreneurship on their menu of options once they go through the education system. I would urge children to go through the education system, get a third level degree and a master's degree, if desired, but try entrepreneurship at least two or three years down the line.

The Minister of State made the important point that careers change. I am convinced that in the future every individual will have between two to four careers in their lives and, therefore, must keep an open mind. I hope one of their careers will be entrepreneurial. I moved from Kerry to Carlow and joined a company called Keenan Systems, an outstanding livestock feeding company. The experience I gained from working for that company gave me enough confidence to do something for myself but, like Ms O'Toole, I had the skillset to back that up. I admire entrepreneurs who start a business straight after leaving school. The entrepreneurial mindset comes at a very early stage when families discuss business at their kitchen tables with their children who attend primary, secondary and third level education.

Senator Freeman mentioned that Ms O'Toole and I built our businesses outside of Dublin. Ms O'Toole built her business in Galway and I built my business in Carlow. I think it is far easier to build a company outside of Dublin and slightly disagree with what the Minister of State said. In rural Ireland entrepreneurs do not set up businesses to make a big amount of money, revenues or profits, which is the result of doing the right things and doing them better than anybody else in the world. That is why my company grew in Carlow. Netwatch rose from the ashes of three great companies that went into demise - the sugar factory in Carlow, Braun and Lappin. The three companies at their peak employed 4,000 people out of a working population of 15,000 in the county of Carlow. One can imagine the devastation their closure caused in the region.

I am a Kerry man, but Carlow people are incredibly resilient. There are some outstanding companies in Carlow that came from the ashes of those companies such as Netwatch and Burnside Autocyl which employs 800 people in Carlow under the radar. There are also Autolaunch and Keenan Systems where I worked, as well as an Irish whiskey business and so on. When someone grows and builds a business in a place like Carlow, there is a burning desire to make it work because he or she is in the local community, rather than being lost in a large conurbation. The profits and everything else come later. The Government's role is not to give us a hand-out but a hand-up by creating the appropriate conditions. As I said at the start, I am looking through the lens of international trade. The Government should give us the ability and put the structures in place to allow us compete in international markets and beat the large organisations, which is critical.

I am enthusiastic about what the Minister of State said about the research and design tax credit and its simplification. As I mentioned, it was designed for SMEs to encourage them to develop and invest in their research and design departments, but some 75% of it goes to multinational organisations, only because they have the infrastructure to make it happen. During the years I have noted two debates, one of which is about the indigenous sector versus the multinationals, but, as Mr. Parlon rightly said, we need each other; it is a symbiotic relationship. Similarly, the media love the debate about the private sector versus the public sector, but we are all on the one side. Simplifying the research and design tax credit system as an incentive for Irish companies to invest, innovate and grow is the right thing to do.

The Minister of State did not address my final point. It is penal for Irish SME owners who grow their business, put in all of the hours which, as Senator Ó Céidigh said, can be more than 100 a week, and sacrifice their families and private lives to grow a business, until a day comes when they want to sell their business. There is a belief that perhaps when somebody sells a business, it disappears, but it does not. It gets far stronger. A simple example is a company in Waterford, namely, Eirgen Pharma, which is an outstanding pharmaceutical company, the founders of which grew it to a certain point, sold it to a large multinational organisation and it has since trebled its workforce. These SME owners are penalised when they sell, but when they sell, they try to invest somewhere else. They are paying capital gains tax at a rate of 33%, which was 20% before the recession but grew. The entrepreneurial community played their part by meeting and trying to make budgets match, but the matter needs to be addressed. We try to get people in at the start and while it is true that they focus on their career path, being screwed at the end is wrong.