Mr. Sean Blanchfield:

I have been an entrepreneur for 15 years. There are obstacles in the tax code facing entrepreneurs that are probably accidental. There is a different image of an entrepreneur in mind, not a struggling 20-something year old putting in all of his or her savings and possibly the next ten years of his or her family life on the line. For example, entrepreneurs do not benefit from a PAYE tax credit, which is explicitly taken away. That is something one might do to explicitly discourage entrepreneurship, but that is the current position. Entrepreneurs do not benefit from any protection in being able to benefit from social welfare if their venture fails. That is explicitly taken away. With regard to capital gains tax, CGT, in several budgets in a row, with the exception of the last one, capital gains tax was increased. For an entrepreneur or an angel investor, that is the end game. That is specifically how one pays oneself, apart from the baseline salary one takes from one's business. These successive increases, although I am sure they were not aimed at entrepreneurs, directly disincentivised entrepreneurs.

In many of these cases there is low hanging fruit that could easily be addressed. The problem is that, as entrepreneurs, we are terrible at making our voices heard in terms of policy. It is because we are working in very small teams with no time or money. We do not have time to engage. From my point of view, that is what Startup Ireland is about - creating the channel in order that even the low hanging fruit policies that could be put in place to dramatically support start-ups could be communicated.