Ms Siobhan Finn:

To answer Senator Quinn's remarks on language skills, there is no doubt an improved range of language skills is available but much more so to go. It has been clearly recognised that one of the challenges particular to the tech sector is around the lack of tech skills with languages, so that is something that needs to be addressed.

With regard to Senator White's comments on the fear of failure around entrepreneurship, this is something I hear every day. It is voiced from the female perspective even more than from the male perspective, possibly because the burden of so much home activity falls upon the woman as well, and trying to manage that while running a business means the risks are far higher.

What we need to look at, as Mr. Costello noted earlier, is the fact not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur. For those who want to try it and have the support network around them, it is wonderful if they succeed. If they do not succeed, however, where do they go, what is the safety net to catch them and is there a mechanism to reintegrate them back into the workforce? That is something that needs to be examined. It is almost like providing a guarantee for people so that, if they do not succeed, there is somewhere to go afterwards and failure is not frowned upon. It should be the view that, "You did not succeed but you tried", and that in itself should be given credibility and recognition.