Mr. Gerry Moan:

I am here to represent Discovery Zone but for the past 20 years I have been working with entrepreneurs. Mr. Jack O'Connor referred to putting the cart before the horse. In that context, I am the horse. The Chairman asked me to provide an outline of the work of Discovery Zone. Before doing so, I wish to take up a number of the points made by Mr. O'Keeffe.

The notion of start-up and entrepreneurship development is key to what we do in the business I run, which is a training company that is very much focused on entrepreneurship. My voice is hoarse because I have just left 350 screaming kids in County Meath who are taking part in the student enterprise awards scheme and who are developing start-up businesses. Next week, I will be spending time with 700 students in County Donegal who are involved in start-up enterprises. When people state that nothing is happening on the ground, I am of the view that this is because the news is just not getting to them. Information on the really good stuff that is happening is just not reaching those who make decisions.

In the context of what I do and what Discovery Zone involves, I too am a business angel and I invest quite an amount of time, energy and money in technology and manufacturing start-ups.

For our part, we have a brand we call SmartStart that helps small and medium-sized technology businesses that want to grow and do more. We start out with seed capital and we help them to attract further investment in investment centres such as Philadelphia and Silicon Valley, which is much lauded but, as I know having visited it, not the only jewel in the crown. There is a way of tapping into our diaspora that we need to take account of and our diaspora in other centres of population are more than keen to invest in our technology start-ups and early stage growth companies. Our experience leads us to believe that Silicon Valley is not the only place we should go for that work and that there are other business communities that would be equally appropriate.

The Discovery Zone arose out of my personal frustration at watching the unemployed, whom we are now more than familiar with through all the statistics. I am sure members are equally familiar with them. I do not mean to be flippant. It is a depressing state for us to be in but let us get the horse before the cart. For the past 12 months we have been running a pilot programme of 15 would-be entrepreneurs who are themselves professionals but who have come from a state of unemployment. By the end of the 12-week programme, we are finished working with them and the business has started. I emphasise it is not a "start your own business" programme, and this is for a specific reason. We are of the firm opinion that "start your own business" programmes and, in a similar way, the apprenticeship programmes alluded to earlier in the meeting are in need of a major overhaul. The Discovery Zone is an attempt to try to address that.

Senator White and Deputy Conaghan referred to the notion of personal development and the well-being that is missing when a person loses a job. For example, a person may have had 15 years' involvement in a major corporate or a major entity and is now devoid of direction. We provide such people with quite a bit of personal coaching and psychometric evaluation, all from fully qualified professionals who, in turn, guide, coach and counsel them through that trauma. That exists as a lifeline for them to the point where - I do not mean this in any flippant way - we have renegotiated terms for people in danger of having their electricity cut off or got their dole back in order to keep them on the programme and to keep the idea they have at the forefront.

We have had 90 people through the programme and, while it has not been a 100% success, it has been damn near it. Of the 90 who have come through the programme, 81 are still in business and, not alone that, 15 of them have gone through to the enterprise platform programmes, which are Enterprise Ireland's way of growing high potential start-ups. Therefore, 15 of the 90 have gone on to grow high potential start-ups and, in turn, attract angel investment in their own right. We have taken the balance of those and we have helped them employ others through the student enterprise schemes, the academic programmes and the network we, as a business, are involved in. Our entrepreneurs and student base come to coach, counsel and work inside those start-up businesses to help them become more successful.

It is early days. We are only 11 months delivering Discovery Zone but I think it is working. We are running around every county enterprise board or any other begging bowl we can get our hands on to try to get it funded because there is no one central pot to fund it from and there is no joined-up thinking. I echo Mr. Frank O'Keeffe's thoughts when we talk about the notion of joined-up thinking. We have the opportunity ahead of us to form these LEOs, or whatever it is we will call them, but we have to manage that very carefully for the entrepreneurs who are on the ground so it does not become about whether people have paid their tax, whether their parking fines are up to date or whether their television licence is paid. It has to be very much about the support and advice those start-up businesses need.

This includes issues such as taking a loan note in lieu of rates. Rather than our county councils looking at a start-up as a rateable opportunity, they would take a loan note and agree that the county council will take equity in the business until such time as the money can be repaid. That is a much more proactive way of growing our start-up community and entrepreneurship, rather than just looking at them as a place to tax. A speaker at the MacGill conference - a woman from the United States whose name escapes me - talked about how she saw every single business as one that would contribute to the community, but only when it could afford it. There is merit in that, particularly in regard to rates.

We call those who have come through the programme "graduates" and the programme is designed to meet the national qualifications framework. To be honest, none of the entrepreneurs have wanted the actual qualification. I do not know whether that says anything about the currency of the qualification but they have not wanted the qualification and have been more inclined to get the business out of the ground. This will be what is found with regard to the work we do, and I see some of the other witnesses nodding in agreement. That is not relevant for entrepreneurs, although it is absolutely relevant for their employees, and is a very credible thing to do.

However, we also need to re-evaluate and re-appraise how we teach entrepreneurship. We cannot teach it, with all due respect to FETAC or HETAC, from academic qualifications and standards that go back to the days of AnCO. We are a FETAC and ILM accredited delivery centre yet we are given AnCO approved standards rebadged by FETAC against which to deliver. They are not relevant and our entrepreneurs do not see them as relevant. It was great to hear one of the previous speakers talk about sales and salesmanship now being introduced into the academic curriculum.