Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The next item is the resumption of the discussion on women entrepreneurship, women in the tech industries, skills needs and balanced regional development. I remind members, visitors and those in the public gallery to please ensure their mobile phones are switched off for the duration of the meeting as they interfere with the broadcasting equipment even when on silent mode. I welcome Mr. Mark Fielding, chief executive, ISME; Mr. Eoin Costello, co-founder and chief executive, Startup Ireland; Ms Siobhan Finn, chief executive, Cork Innovates; Ms Mary Buckley, head of regional development, IDA Ireland; and Ms Maeve McConnon, manger of content and business services division, IDA Ireland.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. If witnesses are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I invite Mr. Fielding to make his presentation.

Mr. Mark Fielding:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation. If I were reporting to a board of directors with information such as that we are not using one half of our resources to their optimum; that half of our available resources is better academically than the other half; that half achieved a 35% higher return on investment than the other half; that half of our resources uses on average one third less capital when setting up a start-up; that half bring in 12% higher revenue than the other half when backed by a venture capitalist; and that the half we are not using tends to be more practical and sensible than the other half, is responsible for up to 85% of all our purchasing decisions in the home, is the largest economic force not just in Ireland but in the world and uses more than half of all the products manufactured, including technology products on websites, then one might think that having that half not just as staff but in positions of leadership would define the future direction of the company and be beneficial and directly advantageous to us.

We know the half I am referring to are women. This is not about gender equality or managing to some diversity metric; it is about innovation and competitiveness. When we think about it, because of conscious or unconscious bias, women in the main tend to be excluded. Through the centuries women have rarely been given credit for their achievements and have been discouraged from studying science, technology, engineering, business or mathematics because these sectors were considered male fields. Women still face some discrimination at all points of their careers and, more often than not, are shunned by bankers and venture capitalists. It is a culture issue, it is an unconscious bias issue and it is a chicken and egg issue. The culture will not shift until there are women in business in the tech industry. Many women will not feel comfortable in the business and tech industry until the culture changes. If we fail to get the other half fully involved in our socio-economic sphere then it is a competitiveness issue. Further, it is not a battle of one half against the other; it is not women against men. It is about using the strengths of each half to increase the results, not alone in business but in the social aspect of our lives.

In terms of a competitiveness issue, many empirical studies have found that people with more diverse sources of information generated consistently better ideas. Diverse teams, more often than not, out-performed teams composed of the very best individuals because the diversity of perspective and problem-solving approach trumps individual ability. Therefore, we must level the playing field for women by supporting their start-ups and removing hurdles that are thrown in their way. Also, parents must inspire their daughters to step forth and take their rightful role in the innovation economy. I reiterate, this is not about gender equality or managing a diversity metric, it is about competitiveness.

One of the main issues of concern is education. Women's educational choices have resulted in the number of women that could potentially set up in business, science and technology or turn an invention into a profitable market products being lower than the number of men. There is a certain lack of business training when undertaking technical and scientific studies. This applies across the board for entrepreneurs, not just for females.

Perceptions also play a part. Entrepreneurship, science, technology, innovation and invention are concepts mostly associated with the male or to be in the male sphere. There is a pervasive stereotyping of women's capacity for leadership. Entrepreneurship, science, technology, innovation and invention are male dominated sectors in which women are still perceived by some market stakeholders as less credible or less professional.

Traditionally, the female is the homemaker within Irish families and tends to absorb most of the childminding responsibilities. That traditional view about the role of women in society and the greater difficulties in balancing family responsibilities with working in fast-moving and competitive sectors creates its own issues.

There is also the exclusion from informal networks. In many sectors jock-talk and late night boozing still oil the wheels of commerce. Lack of access to relevant networks creates its own difficulties. Also, behaviour which in men is seen as assertive or principled can sometimes, in a woman, be seen as overbearing or strident, which creates difficulties.

In terms of role models, there is a lack of role models on the female side but their number is increasing. There are too few women in top jobs to show how it is done. We need more women in these positions in order to send a positive message that women can be successful.

There is an need to increase that.

In business there has been a flattening of organisations in recent years and certain layers of management have been taken out. This has meant there are steeper steps than there used to be, leaving fewer opportunities for people when they re-enter the workforce at higher levels. Many women, inevitably, take time off during their careers.

There are difficulties in accessing finance from a female perspective. Last week a case was brought to my attention involving a 29 year old entrepreneur who happened to be female, but that is beside the point. She had been asked by her local friendly banker whether she could get her husband, or, if not, her father, to sign a guarantee. The banker was a female.

There is discrimination against female entrepreneurs in the social welfare system. Female entrepreneurs looking for maternity leave must have 52 weeks' PRSI contributions, whereas an employee needs to have 39. This is a 33% difference. The discrimination continues because a self-employed female must give 12 weeks' notice of maternity leave whereas an employee need give only six. The way we treat female entrepreneurs at administrative level is pointing to the difficulties.

In a nutshell, we need to tackle these issues. There is a great need for data on the number of female entrepreneurs currently working. I am a great believer in knowing the numbers because we can then measure and manage the situation and improve the numbers. There is no point in talking about increasing female entrepreneurship levels if we do not know our starting point. We need to undertake a general assessment of policies to assess how big is the gender gap and identify sectors that are more problematic. I have already spoken about how there are women-specific needs. Women encounter obstacles and it is important that this is brought forward in education.

It is important to support women's development of their business ideas through coaching and mentoring. This applies across the board; it is not just a female matter, but it is a specific area that we need to promote. One of the issues that we come across frequently relates to programmes being put in place by Government, the promotion of which is not as good as it could be. We need informative events with specific training to encourage women to consider entrepreneurship as a viable or feasible career. We need to plan activities aimed at facilitating women's networking. On the finance side, we need to improve the ability of females to network with financial providers, including venture capitalists, bankers, etc., and increase the understanding of the financial stakeholders in respect of women's potential. Regional forums could be a help in this regard.

I have already mentioned mentoring. The provision of individual mentoring, in particular, from other successful female entrepreneurs, but not necessarily so, is important. Increasing the visibility of female entrepreneurs is also important.

Child care is a major issue that keeps cropping up. If a female entrepreneur in Belgium wishes to take maternity leave, who takes care of her business? She gets what they call the flying entrepreneurs to come in and replace her during her absence. In Ireland, we do not have that type or level of assistance.

The discrimination really needs to stop. There is discrimination across the board with entrepreneurs and self-employed people. We have a programme under way, as part of which we are trying to get the self-employed to be taxed at the same level as others. This applies to males and females across the board. The social welfare anomalies could represent a quick win to get female entrepreneurs in and let it be seen that they are at least the equal of their employees. We have to level the playing field.

The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has the ear of the Minister. While an equality and a diversity issue, which has been well exposed and discussed by many supporters of equality in all its forms, it is now time to take a different but parallel tack and address the challenge from the basic economic stance of increasing efficiency, productivity and competitiveness in that it is of benefit if we use one half, who are what we call the better half, in a more productive way. As I said, this is not all about gender equality but is about competitiveness. I will finish on that and just say we should be using our better half.

Mr. Eoin Costello:

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to address the committee. I met the committee on 8 July when I updated it on the movement called Startup Ireland and the momentum and initiative we had achieved. I promised the committee I would come back and update it on our progress. I am delighted to share with it the fact that I left my job two weeks ago to work full-time in Startup Ireland. I am living on my savings but I live in great expectations of us becoming funded quite shortly because Startup Ireland has really started to gain momentum. The address to this committee was a very useful step along that road.

The reason I am here today is to talk about a major new initiative which is part of the Action Plan for Jobs 2015. It is all about a regionally balanced start-up ecosystem which capitalises on the competitive advantages and the historical legacy of industries, multinationals and the indigenous strengths we have in each of our cities and which would be unique to each city. It is not something one can impose on a city but is something that emerges.

Just to remind ourselves of why start-ups are so important, it is now empirically proven that start-ups create two thirds of all new jobs within developed economies. In a nutshell and to put our mission in Startup Ireland very simply, our goal is to make Ireland a global start-up hub by 2020. When I started to say that a year ago, people said it was nice to have a dream and to keep dreaming but we are now in a situation where this is tangible. As I go through my presentation, members will see why it is achievable.

What is the start-up of sector? A very diverse group of players comprise the start-up of sector. It is quite a new sector and has not really been considered as a kind of horizontal. It comprises technology transfer offices, the professional service providers and co-working space providers and, until very recently, these were seen as an add-on to a huge range of other projects all these providers would be doing. Now, for the first time, it is being treated as a specific agenda item in our public policy, within the multinationals and within our city and urban councils. That is very welcome because it must be treated as a new sector to start to create the density of the networks and the resources needed for it to thrive.

What have we been doing to bring together the various disparate players in the start-up sector? When I spoke to the committee in July, I invited all members to Vision2020 Dublin and quite a number of members joined us on that day in October. We brought the key stakeholders together to discuss what a strategy would look like to make Dublin a global technology start-up hub. We had some very big players in the room that day who committed to doing whatever they could to make that happen. We have now moved on to a situation where rather than just focus on Dublin, we are now looking at regionally-based start-up hubs and we have come up with a strategy as to how to do that.

It sounds fantastic and everyone is buzzing about entrepreneurship and the start-up sector at the moment. Some commentators would say there is a degree of hype and over-inflated expectations but we have to push through that to the reality. We must face the reality that our country does not appear in any of the key global start-up ecosystem rankings.

If we look at one of the reports in 2012, some of the cities are quite predictable but I do not think there is any validity in comparing ourselves to major cities which are part of homogeneous populations. London has access to a population of 70 million or 80 million and has a very accessible market. It is a very long established hub for industry and enterprise.

Two countries with similar size populations, similar size GDP and a similar landmass that are in the top 20 are Israel and Singapore. What characterises those two global start-up hubs is the sheer degree of density and velocity, which are the two defining characteristics of the success.

With regard to density, if we look at the key elements needed to start a successful start-up, an ideal journey would be for a person to go to their university and engage with the tech transfer office or PhD researchers, and really refine a very strong technology, then go to the local multinational, which would have an interface for start-ups to engage with, and then close the first deal. The person would then go down the road 5 km to the local top-class VEC, which could fund a €2 million to €5 million round, close all that, and then go to their professional service providers, who would have the skills in doing high value deals, and it would all be done in a very short period of time.

The reason that is possible is density. When there is density, then the process of going through that - the velocity - speeds up. We do not have that in Ireland. If a typical high impact start-up wants to close a deal with a big multinational or a big back-end development engineer vice president - the decision makers - they have to fly to the United States or to London. Having spent quite a bit of time in the States closing the deal, if they then want to raise a €2 million to €5 million round of venture capital funding, they have to fly to London or to Europe. Eventually, they get back to Dublin and start actually developing. We do not have the density at the moment in Ireland and, as a result, the velocity is very difficult. The committee members will all be familiar with the fact we are struggling to get scale-ups. When we look at our nearest competitor city, London, the density of the various accelerators, incubators, corporate acceleration arms and corporate venturing arms there is very impressive. We need to achieve the same for Dublin.

It is not all bad news, however. If we look at the entrepreneurship policy launched by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, the day before our Vision 2020 event in October, it is clear the Government realises and recognises there is a problem, which is the first step to solving it. Within the entrepreneurship strategy, the Minister has committed to some very clear milestones which will help to move the whole entrepreneurship agenda to a much more sustainable basis in our country. The really exciting opportunity for us to move to being a global start-up hub is the current public consultation on the replacement for the double Irish - the elimination of the current tax regime for multinationals domiciled in Ireland. This presents a real opportunity to make Ireland a global start-up hub because this will be the engine.

To take other start-up ecosystems as an example, in Israel the defence budget and the deep R&D created by that is phenomenal. Singapore has its pivotal position in south-east Asia and phenomenal access to finance. We cannot compete with either of those. However, the public consultation on the knowledge development box closes on 8 April and I would encourage all the members to make a submission on it because it is probably the most important structural reform of the fiscal environment in Ireland in the history of the State, and is a fantastic opportunity to create high value jobs in our jurisdiction. That is where the value is created. We will start to get PhDs working for the multinationals here and have a much higher headcount of people who may embark on break-outs. If we join a consultant and a PhD from a multinational together, we get a really high impact scale-up that can take on the world.

It is great for the future that the knowledge development box is in progress. However, if that is the engine for Ireland to become a global start-up hub, what are the sparks that will ignite that? When we look at Ireland and our unique characteristics, not many people realise that Ireland came No. 1 in the good country index, which was compiled from 35 indicators and measures how much the countries around the world contribute to global welfare overall. How many people are aware of that? I only came across it very recently.

To take another natural characteristic of our national identity, we will always root for the underdog and will always back David versus Goliath. Start-ups are classic underdogs, classic Davids versus Goliath. To take the authoritative text on this area, Brad Feld says that at the heart of successful start-up ecosystems is a sense of community, sharing and paying it forward.

These are characteristics which in previous lives we have shown we have in abundance.

We decided to pull all these elements together, to help differentiate Ireland internationally, draw on our natural characteristics and bring that density and velocity together in one focal point that provides the pivot around which the knowledge development box engine can really fire, the start-up gathering. The start-up gathering is a week of events, encouraging entrepreneurship and show casing Ireland's start-up sector around our country, comprising five days, five cities and five industries. In terms of the reach of this gathering, which takes place from 5 to 10 October, more than 50 events will take place. We are open to any suggestions committee members might have in terms of events they are aware of that could be aligned with that week. Our goal is to interface with at least 15,000 members of the Irish public and international visitors during that week.

We often wring our hands and say we have lost the best talent from Ireland in the past five years. A key goal of this gathering is to encourage those people who have left Ireland to come back and be part of the economic renewal of our country. Therefore, we will set up a diaspora start-up fund, raising the funding for that through a kickstarter campaign and crowd sourcing, which is one of our basic approaches to how we do many things. Through the kickstarter campaign, we will fund the flights home of from 25 to 50 people from around the world who have good business ideas, who want to come back to Ireland and be part of its economic renewal. There has never been a better time for this in terms of the supports, infrastructure and opportunity available.

In terms of where we are in the start-up gathering process, we are launching phase one on 4 March - and I invite all members of the committee to our official launch. This phase is about engaging those stakeholders who organise the events, be they a start-up weekend event or a start-up grind where a local role model talks about his or her experience in organising a successful start-up business. The theme for these events is: Start, Scale, Succeed from Ireland. Often with a process like this, perception becomes reality. If we say it often enough, there will be many more start-ups, scale ups and successes. Phase one, therefore, is about the projects we are inviting to be submitted to be featured during the week of the start-up gathering.

Phase two is about engaging the nation. We need a much higher participation rate in entrepreneurship, male and female entrepreneurship and undergraduate entrepreneurship. We need participation across the whole range. We need to get CoderDojo kids who are learning to programme to think about how they can monetise the ideas they are developing. In my former role - which I finished two weeks ago - I would talk to hundreds of start-ups a year and often the reason some of those never proceeded was because it was never the right time. With the start-up gathering, we are saying now is the right time. We are saying we have the resources and supports available and there has never been a better time to embark on entrepreneurship.

The goal of the start-up gathering is to highlight the resources available in Ireland to start-ups and to attract international high impact start-ups. The more international start-ups that locate here, the more this raises the bar for everybody. We aim to increase Ireland's international visibility, strengthen Ireland's start-up ecosystem and strengthen Ireland's talent base and entrepreneurial networks across the country. I ask committee members to help us make this a success and to help engage their networks in each of the five cities. We would be very grateful for that help. I am happy to deal with any questions members have.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. I now invite Ms Mary Buckley, IDA Ireland, to make her presentation.

Ms Mary Buckley:

I thank the committee for the invitation to make a presentation. I am Mary Buckley, head of regional development for IDA Ireland and with me is my colleague, Maeve McConnon, manager of our content and business services division.

We are pleased to have the opportunity to make a presentation this afternoon on behalf of IDA Ireland. As members know, IDA Ireland is the Government agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment to Ireland. Its parent Department is the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and IDA Ireland works closely with the Minister and his Department and with other Departments - the Departments of An Taoiseach, Finance and Foreign Affairs and Trade - and our sister agencies, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland in achieving foreign direct investment benefits for the Irish economy.

In 2014, 15,012 new jobs were created with 197 investments by IDA client companies. The net increase, when job losses were taken into account, was just over 7,000 which was one of the highest levels of net job creation in a decade. Total employment in IDA client companies now stands at 174,488 people, the highest level in the IDA’s history. There were job gains across most sectors that the IDA is focused on but particularly in digital media and content, technology, international financial Services, life sciences and global business services. Examples of leading investments secured during the last two years include Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in Limerick, Jazz Pharmaceuticals in Roscommon, Overstock in Sligo, Clearstream Technologies in Wexford, Internal Results in Portlaoise, Valeo Vision Systems in Tuam, Hollister in Mayo, Amazon in Cork, Bristol Myers Squibb Fidelity and Linked in Dublin, West Pharmaceuticals in Waterford, PayPal in Dundalk, Ericsson in Athlone, SAP in Galway, Ethicon in Limerick and online companies SurveyMonkey, Airbnb and Zendesk, also in Dublin.

The IDA estimates that for every ten jobs created by FDI, another seven are generated in the wider economy. The contribution is particularly strong in the property and construction sectors where it is estimated that approximately 10,000 people are currently employed on construction projects underway with IDA client companies, providing a considerable economic boost to a sector which has faced unprecedented challenges in recent years, as well as to the wider economy. Sub-contracting firms are particular beneficiaries of this secondary economic impact, as are local communities in general. The IDA is cautiously optimistic that Ireland is in a good position to win significant business across a range of sectors this year. Already this year, up to 250 jobs were announced at Zimmer in Oranmore in Galway, 100 jobs at AMAX in Shannon, 100 jobs at Viagogo in Limerick, 100 jobs at ABEC in Fermoy, while Guidewire Software announced expansion plans with an anticipated 60 to 80 new staff in Dublin.

Multinational client companies of the IDA have a strong culture of gender equality and women feature prominently in senior corporate roles. In locating here in Ireland, they continue that promotion of gender equality and women in Ireland have benefited greatly from their positive climate and supports. We have also seen examples where the valuable experience and high-level skills offered to women in such roles and other senior positions in multinational companies have allowed them transition effectively into their own entrepreneurial enterprises. The heads of many of Ireland’s largest multinational technology companies are women. Examples in the technology sector include Louise Phelan of PayPal, Sonia Flynn of Facebook Ireland, Cathriona Hallahan of Microsoft Ireland and Fidelma Healy of Gilt Ireland, to name just a few. The IDA’s emerging business sector has also seen a high level of women come through in senior positions such as Gina Arcari at Dita Eyewear, Kim Cahill at Squarespace, Kerrie Power at Nordeus and Orla Moran at NewRelic and Geraldine MacCarthy at Dropbox. That said, it is accepted that there is an imbalance generally in the number of women compared to men involved in technology in this country. It is also acknowledged that in order to attract more technology companies to Ireland and to allow those already here to grow we need a work force that is fully representative and that includes more women. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM subjects, are critical. Teaching second level female students about technology, fostering an interest in it at that level and debunking the stereotype that it is a male pursuit is crucial to encourage them to study those subjects at third level. This in turn will develop the pipeline of highly skilled and qualified graduates needed.

Creating role models for women is also very important and such women are there in considerable numbers in Ireland; we just need to make them known. The industry itself has a responsibility in that regard. There are a number of groups and campaigns in place in Ireland to support this initiative, including a new industry grouping, the multinational technology forum, whose members include women leaders from IBM, PayPal and Accenture. My colleague Maeve McConnon represents the IDA on this forum.

With companies relying increasingly on technology for a broad spectrum of functions from solving business problems to understanding consumer behaviour through analytics, big data, social media and cloud computing, new opportunities are being created for companies and, with them, exciting career opportunities for women. We need to show girls that much of computing is about problem solving and collaborative thinking and that computing can be applied in diverse and varied domains. This message must be conveyed to women and the best place to do this is at an early stage of second level education. Some advocate for it to start at the first level education stage and the recently established CoderDojo programmes help support this. While women in high profile positions are working for multinational companies, their status in the upper echelons of Irish business can have a positive effect in encouraging female entrepreneurship by providing strong role models. Networking initiatives and mentoring programmes are also important and there are a number of these in place.

Enterprise Ireland, our sister agency, highlighted in its presentation to the committee last week its solid focus on developing and promoting women entrepreneurs nationally. There are some great events and campaigns in this area in Ireland, many of which are driven by key IDA client companies. Examples include the championing by Silicon Republic, one of Ireland’s leading technology news wires, of the role of women in technology for a number of years now. Specifically, it has been running since March 2013 its Women Invent Tomorrow campaign, which is sponsored by Accenture, Intel, the Irish Research Council, ESB, Twitter, CoderDojo and SFI. The objective of this programme is to highlight the role women play in STEM and to inspire more women to follow in their footsteps. Concrete examples of Silicon Republic's work include the publishing of a list of the top 100 women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the establishment of the Female Founders Forum involving Bethany Mayer of HP, founder of the Women's Innovation Council in the USA, Cork teenager and advocate, Joanne O'Riordan, and Travis Carpico, president of Fidelity Investment Ireland. In 2014, Silicon Republic also presented a number of special recognition awards for role models in this area. At the Female Founders Forum in June 2014, delegates heard from Eventbrite president and co-founder, Julia Hartz, amongst others. The Female Founders Forum also hosted the "Women Invest Meet-Up" in November 2014, which was opened by BT Ireland. Inspire 2015 is Silicon Republic's international event which will take place in Dublin in June to connect science and technology professionals who are passionate about the future of STEM and have fresh perspectives on leadership, innovation and diversity. The IDA is a gold sponsor of this event in conjunction with SFI and Dublin City Council.

Another IDA client, LinkedIn, has driven awareness building programmes like Bring Your Parents to Work Day, which allows parents of employees access to their workplace so see their children's work and what they do. Building awareness among parents around the range of roles, functions and opportunities available in the technology industry today is paramount as parents are key influencers in their children's education and career choices. In essence, Ireland is a destination of choice for global IT skills and demand for IT graduates is only set to increase. This offers huge opportunities for Irish students over the next five to ten years, both at home and abroad.

I turn to regional business development of entrepreneurial hubs. Currently, there are over 450 IDA client companies employing approximately 75,000 people outside Dublin and Cork. While the IDA is responsible for attracting foreign investment to Ireland and its regions, it does not work alone and requires the support of local authorities, third level colleges, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland, to name but a few, to ensure that the environment is right for winning and retaining investment in Ireland. In many locations throughout Ireland, clusters have been developed in particular sectors or activities. For example, the west is well known for a cluster of overseas and indigenous life sciences companies. Clusters are identified where overseas and indigenous firms co-locate within a recognisable geographical area, co-operate and compete around certain activities and establish close linkages and working alliances to improve their collective competitiveness.

While we have seen the co-location of companies in Ireland in a range of sectors and activities, this alone will not realise the synergies and additional economic impact that is possible. Effective networks, linkages and clustering initiatives will be increasingly important over the coming years to ensure competitive and innovative ecosystems.

A dynamic start-up community is an attractiveness factor for FDI generally. It is important to recognise that reinforcing a supportive start-up ecosystem in Ireland is critical both for the attraction of overseas entrepreneurs and emerging companies as well as home-grown start-ups. As I already mentioned, executives in multinational companies have established their own companies having gained experience in the multinational environment here.

IDA Ireland, through the action plan for jobs, is working in partnership with Enterprise Ireland on the area of global sourcing with the aim of bringing multinational companies in Ireland and local Irish companies together as sub-suppliers. A trade mission to multinational companies within Ireland commenced in 2014 in Cork, Galway, Dublin and Limerick. IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland collaborate in this area, particularly so when multinationals visit Ireland as a location to invest, providing opportunities for indigenous companies to pitch for business from the earliest opportunity. Another example is the Department-funded technology centres around the country. The programme Enterprise Ireland runs jointly with IDA Ireland involves clients of both agencies collaborating on technology issues which are close to market. Out of such collaboration, businesses will emerge. The Minister has a keen interest in it to make sure that it continues to grow.

Indeed, he has spoken recently about the Department's development of the regional strategy frameworks in each region with IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and other agencies. This involves working collaboratively with regional stakeholders on the development and implementation of a regional enterprise strategy. Work is currently underway in the midlands region focused on harnessing the region’s strengths and opportunities. This will be critical to ensuring that key business factors are in place to support the sustainability and growth of all enterprises – overseas, indigenous and entrepreneurial.

The importance of the education and training sector in providing a supply of talented graduates cannot be overstated. Skills are probably the most important factor in determining IDA Ireland's success in attracting high-quality FDI to Ireland. Having a dynamic talent pool in Ireland was an important component in IDA Ireland's strong performance in 2014. Ireland is considered by client companies to have a very good skills base. When making investment announcements, companies often cite skills availability as a key reason for locating here but there is no room for complacency. We must keep abreast of changing skills needs and be in a position to meet that need. To that end, IDA Ireland has forged good relationships with third-level institutions and engages on an ongoing basis with them to ensure the changing skills needs of FDI clients in terms of graduate capability are understood and are being met through continued openness to working collaboratively with clients on their skills agenda.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Buckley and invite Senator White to start off the questions.

Mary White (Fianna Fail)
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Perhaps my colleague, Deputy Calleary, would like to speak. I know all the people and what they are saying so we can move on.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Tóibín has indicated first.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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I do not mind.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses. How much would the social welfare changes proposed by ISME and measures relating to entrepreneurship in general and female entrepreneurship in particular cost in a given year? What kind of budget would be needed for that?

Mr. Mark Fielding:

We have not done a costing.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I wish Mr. Costello good luck with the new mission. The target of making us a global start-up hub by 2020 is ambitious when we are not on any of the maps at the moment. If Mr. Costello was supreme leader and did not have to worry about the Dáil or Seanad or democracy, what are the first two things he would do to reach that target?

Mr. Eoin Costello:

I can bring in my colleague, Ms Siobhan Finn, in respect of the regional clusters and the fact that because we are not pulling agrifood, agri-tech and ICT in Cork or Limerick as a strong international competitive cluster, we are missing an opportunity to achieve the goal.

One thing I would do is make sure the knowledge box, which is the subject of the public consultation process, is configured in a way that is as advantageous to our State as to our guest multinationals. If we make sure it is configured in everyone’s interest we will have far more mobility of PhD researchers and of capital. More international entrepreneurs will see Ireland as a land of opportunity for start-ups that want to take on the world because there will be senior managers in the multinationals who are interested, having reached the top of the career ladder in their corporation, in breaking out to embark on a start-up. The knowledge box is a critical piece of infrastructure. To answer the question on whether we are capitalising enough on our strength I will hand over to Ms Finn.

Ms Siobhan Finn:

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to be here today. Mr. Costello referred to the importance of community in strengthening regional entrepreneurship. In recent years we in Cork have brought together all the key stakeholders under the umbrella of Cork innovates and have proved that the collaborative approach has served the entrepreneurship community very well in heightening awareness of the kinds of services available. This is done at a regional level only.

When Mr. Costello spoke to me 12 months ago to talk about the model for Startup Ireland that led into a conversation about a start-up gathering. That plays on the strength of a region and messaging it internationally to improve the results for a nation. It sends out the message that each region has very significant core strengths. Industries have emerged from the regions, whether agri-business in Cork or medical devices in Galway but together they can present the message internationally and on a European level that the country has worked well to recover from the challenges posed by recession and recognises the value of working together and building strength as a nation to achieve the kind of international results Mr. Costello talked about within a short time-frame.

Mr. Eoin Costello:

It is achievable and realistic because capital, multinationals and high impact start-ups are very mobile. If we get the infrastructure and the knowledge development box right it could happen very quickly and success breeds success. The critical mass will bring in more resources and more success stories which will create the momentum for a global start-up hub. I am very optimistic.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I have been critical of the regional performance and statistics, which we can discuss on another occasion. One of the strengths of our multinational community is its ability to reinvent itself. Ms Buckley mentioned companies that have been in Ireland for 40 years and are doing something completely different now because of the strength of the Irish team and research and development coming up with products. Are Irish people reluctant to break out of the comfort of the multinational job to use their knowledge and skills to start up a company? Is it an international phenomenon to reinvent companies but be afraid to start one up?

Ms Mary Buckley:

In my experience people have many opportunities within the multinational environment, to work in Ireland and often to travel overseas and gain experience. Some but not all take opportunities and have learnt a great deal. They have a lot of experience, have worked in innovative roles and take the opportunity to start something up. There are always innovation and start-ups when companies downsize or close, forcing people to use their experience and expertise and take that on board.

I recall many conversations about DEC in Galway. It greatly helped to drive and build Galway as a location for start-ups. Good start-ups emerged following that closure, which was a long time ago. Good things happened there. Following the closure of TalkTalk in Waterford in 2011, a new company, Eistec was established with a female entrepreneur, Heather Reynolds, who came out of that environment. Without a doubt the experience, expertise, and training and development that come from multinationals are there to help and encourage people if they decide to take that step.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I ask the three groups to imagine being before a group of 15-year olds, who are likely to feel pushed towards a permanent pensionable job. What five words would the witnesses use in presentation to persuade these 15-year olds to go down the entrepreneurship route and establish their own businesses?

Ms Siobhan Finn:

Master of their own destiny.

Mr. Eoin Costello:

My father always said to me, "Whatever you do in life, make a difference". Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. It is like high-impact sport or parachute jumping. There is a certain group for whom it is ideal. We need to identify those people as early as possible and nurture and encourage them up through the system. They are the ones who will make a difference.

Mr. Mark Fielding:

Ms Finn said what I was going to say. People who want to be independent and run their own life are better off in their own business.

Ms Mary Buckley:

Many young people see themselves as wanting to be successful. I endorse what everybody has said here. I would also encourage them to have lifelong learning in their lives. They always need to be learning, whether that is through mentoring or through some form of education. That is critical as a way in which to develop and collaborate. It is something that all industries have learnt in recent times.

The Collison brothers who set up Stripe are both in the very early 20s and hugely successful. For any Irish boys and girls it is wonderful to see the success they have had.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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My first question is for Mr. Fielding. I agree that the sum of the gender parts far outweighs the individuals. Last week a ground-breaking female entrepreneur appeared before the committee. One of the key points she made was that for better or worse, in many families women take the brunt of the responsibility of minding and rearing the children. Another point she made - this was confirmed by the representatives of Enterprise Ireland - was that middle management in business is a key seeding ground for future entrepreneurs. If we could ensure that more women find themselves in middle management in those companies, we would have more female entrepreneurs seeded from that ground.

The Government can play a role in ensuring that the key issue of supports for women in those areas are there. How do we make businesses more friendly? How do we make that middle management space more family-friendly - friendly for women, who, unfortunately, take on most of the responsibility? While I might be wrong in this, in a private business a person could take maybe two years out on a career break and not find himself or herself at the bottom of the professional ladder or even struggling to get back into work.

There is a cost to business supports and businesses are struggling. There is a fine line between having the supports and yet keeping the businesses are viable. The idea of the flying entrepreneur is a fascinating example of what could potentially be done. If we can drill down into more of those supports and give them some kind of statutory support from the State, that could make a difference. I ask the witnesses if they could speak to that.

Mr. Costello gave a fascinating presentation. One of the nuts we are trying to crack here is the Mittelstand, as the German's call it, that middle sized indigenous SME. There is a desert in that space in the State. I am aware the witnesses mentioned start-ups specifically but do they have a view on how we can ensure that businesses get into that level of growth and space? It is probably more difficult for FDI industries than it is for EI to put on particular programmes in this area but do FDI industries target women-led businesses? I am aware that having women in visible positions often inspires young girls and women to go for those positions in the first place. One of the key areas in which the witnesses probably have influence is in the engagement between FDI industries and local direct investment, LDI, that space where we want local business to engage more with FDI industries. Are there any particular programmes or incentives to ensure that women entrepreneurs are in that space?

I congratulate the witnesses on the IDA figures in respect of the work they have been doing this year. I note the regional distribution and the improvement but there are many counties, some of which I have mentioned previously, which still need more IDA investment. I would be happy if the witnesses could address those questions.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Who would like to contribute first?

Ms Mary Buckley:

Certainly the role of the IDA is to attract overseas companies to Ireland, the objective being to create employment. As an organisation, the IDA does not get involved in female entrepreneurs or in female leaders within technology companies or try to bring female-led companies to Ireland. However, we have very good examples of the multinational companies that are here and some of the things they try to do to ensure that their middle management is looked after through flexitime, working from home and some of those type of options, and things that take place within companies. My colleague, Ms Maeve McConnon, is familiar with many of the activities within companies so I will hand over to her and invite her to contribute.

Ms Maeve McConnon:

We have some great examples and what is great about the examples is that they show best practice in some of these areas. That is something we can aspire to across the board for companies in Ireland. A number of companies are doing much work in this area. For example, Accenture has been running its inspire women in technology programme for many years which champions the role of women in science technology and STEM subjects. Its action programme for women recognises the need to take action for women and the need to adjust its polices accordingly. Part of this programme is to introduce mentoring and some supports for women, including women going on maternity leave who are appointed a maternity buddy who comes in while the person is out and after the person comes back. The maternity buddy keeps them up to date on what is happening in the organisation and attuned to strategies and changes in policy so that when they return they assimilate very quickly back into the organisation.

Those types of initiatives are innovative and have led to great sharing and best practice both across their organisation and into the greater economy where they are working with producing reports on those who have the greatest influence on women in technology. They have looked at reports on who influences; it is really the parents. Parents primarily influence a child at secondary school and that influences career choices in their CAO applications. Accenture has been doing much research in this area. Again it is about looking back into the profile of what jobs a girl and boy should go into and changing some of those stereotypes. Accenture do some great work in that area. I am sure the committee is aware of some of the work Facebook is doing as well, led by led by its CEO, Sheryl Sandberg.

EMC has been very vocal, as has Intel. Many of them see the need to increase that bridge relating to employable workforce. They know that skill shortages are global and they need to be able to attract and nurture skills they have in Ireland and globally.

Mr. Mark Fielding:

The flattening of organisations in recent years has meant that the layers of management have been stripped out so there is a big jump. When a woman takes time off from work, there is a need in respect of the difficulty in coming back into the workplace. Would that we had the buddy system in the SME sector. It would be great to be able to afford that. Mentoring is an issue in terms of being able to mentor a person into the workplace because technology and business are moving so fast, people are left behind.

Training managers is needed in terms of mitigating unconscious biases in business. Analysing job descriptions and recruitment practices for unconscious bias is important and would help more females to reach a higher level. I agree and disagree with my IDA colleague in the sense that I think secondary level is too late to be talking about STEM and female students. It must take place at primary level. Entrepreneurship must start at primary level rather than waiting for somebody to get to the leaving certificate, or transition year where they spend a couple of hours every week making socks and selling them to each other. We need to start talking in terms of what the reality of life is and that has to be done well below secondary and tertiary level.

We hear about the culture fit. Women talk about how when they go for interviews, they are told they do not fit in. It is not a culture fit. It is because they are female and the technology area is so male-dominated that there is a difficulty there. Again, this is where we need to talk in terms of the people who are interviewing. If one looks at any engineering business, it is very difficult to get women at the top level but very often the directors are not engineers. They are all different. The difficulty is that women are held to a different standard and this needs to be overcome.

Mr. Eoin Costello:

The issue of scaling is a multi-factorial problem. It involves access to capital and markets but when one boils it down, it comes down to what Ms Buckley spoke about in terms of Stripe and the Collison brothers. They moved to the US because the scale of their ambition was for a €1-billion valuation company. The research examined the difference between Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Dublin and London. The entrepreneur's ambition in Silicon Valley and London was for $1-billion valuation companies. Otherwise, they would not get out of bed for it. In respect of the average entrepreneur in Ireland - a lifestyle business possibly employing three or four staff - do we talk to the broad mass of people embarking on entrepreneurship? We focus on the really motivated and passionate people and the kind of ambition that will scale up those companies, take on the obstacles when they pass the €200-million or €300-million valuations and keep going. In a sentence, it is about the scale of ambition of entrepreneurs. Our culture is not ambitious enough for our entrepreneurial ecosystem, so we must be ambitious. We must create the framework conditions whereby we can help people scale up faster and overcome those obstacles faster and stop losing our high-impact entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial talent to other start-up ecosystems like Silicon Valley or London.

Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2013 stated that men are 1.9 times more likely to be at the start-up entrepreneurship stage. If we want to encourage women into business and start-ups, there are two strands. First is the initial strand of education. I agree that primary school is the key time to encourage young girls to get interested in entrepreneurship. I would be interested to know from the witnesses how that should be approached from a teaching perspective. One would have to go into the teacher training colleges. If one is going to do this, one will have to approach it in a particular way and not only through the STEM subjects. The second strand is where women are already in the workforce where the perennial issue is that of child care. Reference was made to mentoring and the buddy system, which is all very good, but child care and its cost falls back on women. I would be very interested to know what the witnesses feel the State could do. It may be an obvious question but how to empower women and support them as entrepreneurs needs must be spelled out.

What is the experience of interaction with local enterprise offices? How are they working and what do the witnesses feel can be done to improve them, if anything?

Ms Siobhan Finn:

I thank Senator Naughton for her questions. On the education of our young people, I advocate and support strongly what Mr. Mark Fielding has said around the integration of the teaching of entrepreneurship at a primary level. Some of our European counterparts are actually teaching entrepreneurship at preschool level. Rather than use the word "teaching", I would suggest "learning". First and foremost, it must be part of the curriculum so that time is allowed in the school and it is not considered an add-on where one has the luxury of a spare hour at the end of the day. It should be an integral part of the curriculum. Second, it must be done through the role models within the community. We are all very aware of the absolute necessity of having role models presented to our younger population so that boys and girls at school can understand what is achievable right across the spectrum. Those role models should be accessible from a very young age. Ms Mary Buckley has mentioned several of them through the IDA businesses. There are role models right across our community from small indigenous businesses to the multinationals. I suggest that there is a means of exploring how a more formalised, restructured system could be put in place to engage those role models right across the country within our educational system for the benefit of the student and to work with and support teachers on the integration of entrepreneurship.

Ms Mary Buckley:

I agree with the previous speaker. One of the most important things is that they need to hear entrepreneurship being talked about all the time. I think of the expert group on future skills needs which is always looking to see where the gaps are in schools for the future. Clearly, the STEM subjects have arisen with ICT skills and others. I am trying to translate some of the very good work the group does where it has a very strong role in communicating and influencing to first, second and third level students as well as to parents, career guidance teachers and everyone else. For entrepreneurship, there are role models and a requirement for people to speak positively about and encourage it. That is the most important piece. It should be just like going to college and doing law, medicine or, indeed, engineering. Entrepreneurship should be on that list to push people along to do things for themselves.

Feargal Quinn (Independent)
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I have found this session very interesting. Mr. Mark Fielding spoke about schools, including primary schools. I have spoken in the last few weeks to a number of different primary schools on entrepreneurship and it is a joy to hear the enthusiasm of these youngsters. I spoke to pupils in the fifth class and sixth class age groups.

They are just so enthusiastic. What impressed me was that I did not get any sense of a fear of failure. Those entrepreneurs, even at that young age, did not seem to be frightened of failing. I would think that is probably one of the more important areas to focus on.

I have a daughter living in France. She is in business there and is actively involved with different groups and it seems to me that there are quite a number of Irish people who have succeeded in France. Yet many Irish companies, if they are seeking to expand or to export, tend to look to England or America because of the lack of foreign languages. Is there anything we can do with regard to languages, both European languages and the languages of emerging economies like China? I have a grand-daughter who lives in China and speaks Mandarin. It seems to me that we can encourage children in some age groups to look further afield than they are looking at the moment.

I met a group of fifth class students recently and the girls seemed to be taking over from the boys. They had come up with the concept of creating a cookery book and selling it and were calling to local restaurants to get recipes for the book. I was amazed at their enthusiasm at the age of 10 or so. We need to inspire people at that stage of their lives and should do so. Having listened to the witnesses today, it seems they are on that same road.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Quinn and now call Senator Mary White.

Mary White (Fianna Fail)
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The presentations from all of our guests were outstanding. This has been a very enlightening and interesting meeting so far.

There is a dichotomy in Ireland. We talk about entrepreneurship and how much we need it but Government Departments are suspicious of entrepreneurs because of issues like taxation, PRSI and so forth. I really believe that is the situation. They do not trust them and think they are all making a fortune and not telling. There is a distrust there. I am talking here about culture. Within Government Departments there is an innate distrust of entrepreneurs. It is all very fine to talk about ten and 11 year olds having no fear but their parents are culturally bound too. When push comes to shove, they want their children to become doctors, barristers, lawyers, teachers and so on. They want them to do something safe that has status in society rather than being an entrepreneur, at which they could fail. Despite all of the talk about entrepreneurship, we are still culturally bound. That is why we depended so much on multinationals and still do. While some people are developing their own indigenous companies, there is still a real lack of desire to be an entrepreneur.

I also wish to raise with Mr. Fielding the issue of child care from the perspective of small and medium companies. What is his honest opinion on women taking child care leave or the Government increasing the availability of such leave? Increasing such leave for workers in the public sector is fine but I do not know how a female entrepreneur could start a business if she had a baby or small child.

In my experience, it would be very difficult to be an entrepreneur and raise a baby or young child at the same time. However, as Senator Naughton said, we need to get more women to start up businesses. If we got as many women as men starting up businesses, we would create more employment and jobs. The culture is an issue.

I have a question for Ms Buckley. In the context of balanced regional development, every county now has a local enterprise office. We had a presentation last week from Mr. Tom Hayes which I found a cause for optimism, because these offices are on the ball. However, I have had questions in regard to how successful they can be and whether they will really be entrepreneurial. Will IDA Ireland have any input in that regard? Will it provide role models or have any creative or innovative interaction with the local enterprise offices?

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I ask Mr. Fielding and Ms Buckley not to forget the question put by Senator Quinn on language when they respond.

Mr. Mark Fielding:

I would never forget Senator Quinn. On the language issue, we keep coming across the fact that while we talk in terms of how brilliant it would be to have Mandarin or Portuguese, the difficulty is that our third level institutes do not have the teachers and only teach what they know. They teach German and French and the fact that industry is looking for graduates with Mandarin or Portuguese is just tough for industry. We need to get our third level institutes up to speed on this issue as it is an issue that keeps arising.

We will always have the issue of the fear of failure versus the security of a good safe job. This is the natural reaction of a parent. It is probably good we do not have so many career guidance teachers now, because they would never talk of entrepreneurship as a career path. The attitude was almost, "there be dragons". Senator White put her finger on the issue of the culture in Ireland and entrepreneurship. The culture is changing slowly but surely, but entrepreneurs are regarded as about one step up from the black economy. When we go to talk to civil servants about any kind of initiative, their first concern is to discover what loophole we are trying to get through in this case.

Mary White (Fianna Fail)
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Exactly.

Mr. Mark Fielding:

I distinctly remember an initiative entitled Ahead of the Curve we had a number of years ago and I remember a civil servant asking us what we were trying to exploit then. The culture is changing, so we will not paint all civil servants with the same brush. I sit on the Company Law Review Group and when we talk about trying to make things a little easier for small business, we are immediately asked questions such as what will happen if such and such arises. It is always about the safe option, because there could be an issue, rather than looking at it optimistically. I suppose it is the job of civil servants to look at safety to protect us. However, that is not necessary to the extent it is happening currently.

We mentioned the status of the person who takes the initiative to invest his or her own money or his or her family's money in his or her own business. In doing that, they provide employment to people, yet we look on them as second-class citizens rather than local heroes. This must change. When we see that change, we will get more young people thinking this is something they would like to do and we will get more parents suggesting to their children that they try that option.

In regard to child care leave, recently we heard a Minister of State talk about paternity leave that would be paid for. This sent shivers up the spines of many small businesses because the question for them is who will pay for that. There is a cost aspect to child care.

This is particularly the case from the point of view of a female setting up her own business and trying to balance child care and running a business. It is next to impossible from a cost point of view as well.

Mary White (Fianna Fail)
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That is also what I think.

Mr. Mark Fielding:

If there were some initiatives in that regard, it would certainly be welcome. Again, this is necessary if we are serious about entrepreneurship and about bringing female entrepreneurship up to the level it should be at, and I am talking in terms of 1.9 times the number of men to women at present. If we look at the position of HPSUs, the number is increasing, but slowly. The number of patents registered by females is at 8% across Europe as against 92% for males, so we are missing out. As I said at the beginning, this is a competitiveness issue. If we want to get this country going again, we need the female entrepreneurs just as much as we need the males, and we are not getting that at the moment.

Ms Mary Buckley:

With regard to multilingual talent and the ability to have other languages, when foreign direct investment came to Ireland a number of years ago, one of the key advantages was that we were English-speaking. However, that is no longer the case today. All business is global and the need to have language skills is critical. I outlined in my submission some of the large multinational companies that are based here and their skills requirements. For example, Google, whose activities are spread across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, would have about 45 languages within its operation in Dublin; SAP would have another 20 or 21 languages in Galway; and Apple in Cork is a multilingual centre. Therefore, the breadth of language skills is much greater now than it ever was before. When one is conscious of working in business, the need to have another language is critical. Without a doubt, it is very important to do as much as we can around the area of other languages and having the ability to be multilingual.

On Senator White's comment on the LEOs, which are run and overseen by Enterprise Ireland, the launch of the new enterprise strategies will serve to assess what are the strengths and opportunities within the different regions. I am sure the whole area of start-ups and entrepreneurship will be important and all the stakeholders will have a role to play to ensure there is success within the regions around the areas they identify as being important for economic viability. We will all have a role to play in that.

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.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming in to help us with our deliberations, which have been most helpful and engaging.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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We will resume in public session. I welcome Ms Niamh Bushnell, the Dublin commissioner for startups, to discuss the topic of women entrepreneurship, women in the tech industry and skill needs and balanced regional development of entrepreneurial hubs. We are particularly delighted to welcome Ms Anna Porter, an award winning student at the recent Young Scientist competition and who is here to discuss her project entitled, Why do women stay in STEM careers?.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee.However, if they are directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter to only qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise nor make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I invite Ms Bushnell to make her presentation.

Ms Niamh Bushnell:

I thank the committee for inviting me. It is a delight to be here. I am the Dublin commissioner for startups. This role is a collaboration between Dublin City Council, Enterprise Ireland and the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and it came out of the Activating Dublin report, which was published in August 2013 and which brought together all the stakeholders in the community in Dublin to talk about how we could make Dublin a great start-up city. One of the key recommendations was that we needed one message, one role, one voice and one platform to position Dublin internationally as a great start-up hub and start-up city, along with all of the other great start-up hubs and cities like London, New York, Berlin and Silicon Valley. That is my role in this job.

To put my comments into context, I have been in the tech world for all of my career. I spent the past 16 years in the States. I applied for this role from New York and when I received a "Yes", I came home and set up shop here with my family. In regard to my background in the States, I initially worked for Enterprise Ireland for six years as a VP of software, helping Irish tech companies come into the States. It was a very exciting role. Many great Irish tech companies are coming into the States all the time, as we know. I then worked for Orbiscom, an Irish payments tech company, which was bought by MasterCard in 2009. It is another great success story out of Ireland. It is a really great exit to a really great parent company, MasterCard, which has set up MasterCard Labs in Dublin as its global HQ for payments innovation. Out of an Irish start-up which moved to the States very early, we have this great innovation centre for payments based out of Dublin for the world, which is very exciting.

After that I started consulting, working with companies coming into the States on an individual basis. It was very similar to what I had done in Enterprise Ireland but off my own bat and in my own company. I did that for a couple of years and then I started to invest in start-ups. I am an angel investor in a group of start-ups in New York - ten start-ups in total. I started to invest in 2011. Two of those companies died on the vine, as they do, and seven of them are still going strong. One of them had a great exit. We have not done too badly so far. One of them which is still going strong and we think will eventually get a great exit out is a woman-led company called PublicStuff, about which we are very excited. That is my background.

After investing in companies and getting very close to the start-up scene in New York as a mentor and an investor, I caught the bug to set up some start-ups myself. I set up two start-ups in New York and was in the middle of my second start-up when this role came up in Dublin.

The reason I applied for the role was because I had been coming back to Ireland on a regular basis and had seen the start-up scene here emerge as something very interesting with huge potential and with a lot of energy. Every six months I came home and each time I could see it had taken another giant leap forward. It was exciting for me, coming from a great start-up city like New York, to come back to Dublin and get that same sense here in pockets around the city and then to see more and more of it. All of a sudden, back in 2013, I got that sense as I walked around this city. I knew Dublin had arrived as a great start-up city and it was now a question of growing it.

When the role came up to be the Dublin commissioner for start-ups I thought to myself what a great opportunity and what perfect timing for Dublin, this is a window of opportunity that Dublin has, I have a lot of experience on all sides of the start-up world and I can add value in this bigger role in Dublin. Lucky for me I got the job and here I am. That is my background.

The role has many goals and metrics which I shall encapsulate into two things. First, I want to put Dublin on the map. As I mentioned before, Dublin has arrived. There are many great start-up companies in Dublin. We are very innovative in many different areas of technology which range from payments to enterprise software. We are doing some great stuff in consumer Internet and on the Internet aspect of things. There is no shortage of role models, success stories and potential for global leadership in certain categories, coming out of Dublin. It is just that the story has not been told outside of the country. Nobody knows that Dublin is a great start-up city. One can guarantee that is the truth in the US, Europe and further afield.

The first goal of my role is to put Dublin on the map. I want Dublin to be spoken about and to be a member of the club when people talk about great start-up hubs like New York, Berlin and London. Ireland in its own way and with its size - not to compete or copy them but be of our own selves - can be a great place to attract talent and act as a magnet for start-ups, investment and innovation. We are starting to do so. That train has left the station. It is just a question of how we speed things up and get the message out.

The second part of my role strongly reflects my background. As I have spent the past 16 years in the US, I can help Irish companies to internationalise more purposefully. We do a very good job, with Enterprise Ireland, in providing support for companies to get into foreign markets. We bring foreign investors into Ireland and the Government supports all of these activities. The next step that needs to be taken is to help companies, at an earlier stage in their careers, to imbed themselves on the ground in their primary markets, wherever those primary markets are located. Often those primary markets are in the US but sometimes they are in other countries.

It is very important that the emphasis of start-ups is taken off funding, to some extent, and focused on markets. The following questions must be asked: Does one know one's markets? Does one know one's customers? How can one validate customers? How long has one spent with them? How can one benefit from the talent that sits on those markets? How can one bring that talent on board at the right time for one's company? How can one build relationships with investors early on so that they can be investors when the time comes to scale them up and get that kind of investment? I am convinced that if companies do not spend more time in the primary markets that they are selling into then they will be unable to compete globally. That is one of the big challenges that we have and is one of my areas of focus. We are doing lots of different things about the situation.

Enterprise Ireland does an outstanding job and we support a soft landing for companies into the US. What we really need to do is imbed them into the communities they are selling into and imbed them into the start-up industry that they could join in New York. The Germans do this in New York by way of providing an accelerator option for German companies that is very competitive and the Canadians do the same thing. During my time in this role I want us to move slowly but surely in that direction. I have a project this year that will start us off on that route. I have outlined the big goals for my role.

In terms of women in tech, we are going in the right direction. It is a positive story when compared with the statistics coming out of Enterprise Ireland. In 2011, EI supported seven women-led companies in total from across Competitive Start and High Potential Start-Up schemes. In 2014, EI supported 43 companies in total, which represents 23% of its overall funding and was spent between Competitive Start and the HPSU companies. That percentage is way ahead of our international partners. In the US, funding across the board for women-led companies varies from between 15% and 20% and in Europe the percentage is even less. A rate of 23% means we are doing a very good job and more of that is the story we need to tell.

When it comes to companies that need to scale and one is looking at the venture capital market, we have very few Irish female VCs. This is a concern for a number of reasons. Obviously, the female-led companies that pitch to VCs are talking to men who see things through a male's lens and a man's understanding of the world. However, it is even more challenging if the companies they are building are female oriented, in that they may be fashion companies, jewellery companies or something women understand more innately than men. Consequently, it is even harder for women to sell and pitch an idea to try to create this vision of a global market if they are sitting in front of men only as the investors at the table. While there are a lot of super investors in Ireland and lots of educated global citizens among them, we need more female investors, VCs and angel investors in Ireland and this is something which should be encouraged. Together with STEM, we should encourage greater proficiency and more talent in the financial area and women to be the people who make the decisions about who is and is not funded and who helps them to scale. This is another area that is very interesting.

Outside the VC area all of the research will show - Enterprise Ireland's in-depth research and interviews with female entrepreneurs also tell this story - women's lack of confidence to "big up" their businesses in comparison with men. This is typical and not just an Irish thing. I also saw this in the United States and I am the product of that fear of positioning oneself too broadly. However, in general women are afraid to tell the big story and to have "wow" numbers. They are afraid to put themselves out there because they are always anxious to know how they will get to that place. They want to move step by step and position that deliberate and measured approach as to where they are going, but that does not work in a fast moving, technology-driven, highly ambitious investor and customer market. Women must be able to talk about their vision for a couple of years hence in respect of where they are going, who will be category leaders and from where they will get their customers. They must have that big story at their fingertips.

When I was looking for investment in the United States, I had a couple of mentors who helped me to prepare my pitch. One female mentor looked through my deck and told me that it simply was not "wow" enough. There were not enough big numbers in it; there was no big vision. She told me I would not get the attention I required and that I needed to increase the numbers significantly. I responded by saying they were the numbers with which I was comfortable, that this was what I was comfortable saying and, were my back to the wall, they were the numbers behind which I could stand and support in the future. I said I wanted them to believe in me as somebody in whom they could invest. Her response was succinct: I should think like a man and pull it out of my proverbials. That was a moment of realisation for me that while I considered myself to be strong willed and confident - if not a feisty entrepreneur - I was still unwilling to pull the figures out of the air and stand behind them.

We need to help women to present better and have the confidence to imagine the dream and bring people on a journey when they talk about their businesses, wherever they may be going. It does not need to be global domination or a billion dollar company, but whatever is the capability of that business and however big is the market, women should be able to position themselves as being able to take a massive share of it. That is how one gets investment and one excites markets. That is how someone convinces large companies to roll out his or her product when they have never heard of his or her company previously. Success needs that confidence to be able to pitch and sell and one should then fill in the gaps as one goes along. A person does not need to have all of the answers - nobody does - and every entrepreneur is in a dark tunnel for the vast majority of the time. He or she is just figuring it out step by step as he or she goes along. It is an iterative process, about which one should not worry. We need to talk a lot more to female entrepreneurs, as well as to all other entrepreneurs in Ireland. This is something entrepreneurs in Ireland, when compared to somewhere such as the United States, do not do well. We do not "big up" our companies or talk about changing the world or being category leaders, but we need to do this a lot more often to get the attention we deserve because our products are worth it.

While the quality, innovation and leadership are there to be seen, the marketing is lacking.

My second start-up was tech-heavy in that we invested all of our own money on the tech side. Although I have worked on the tech side world all of my life, I have always been involved at the business end and have no background in technology. My partner and co-founder was a man and when I was down in the mines with him trying to understand what was going on from a product development roadmap scenario, how to prioritise different pieces of functionality and get rid of bugs in our product that were annoying our customers, it was a very challenging conversation every day and it took up so much time because I did not understand what he was talking about. He might as well have been speaking a different language. The chasm one has to cross if one has no technical background is massive. The earlier we can get people to have fluency in the language of technology the better, even if they do not end up becoming coders or developers in order that they can understand what is happening in a tech-driven business. Technology and data science should be foundational degrees for those who want to build companies. We should consider this very strongly.

We do not have many great role models for successful Irish female entrepreneurs. We have Anne Heraty of Cpl who is on my advisory board and Susan Spence of SoftCo. In a couple of years we will have more role models because some great companies such as Restored Hearing, Pharmapod, Beats Medical and Love & Robots are coming up. They are breaking down barriers in terms of the innovations they are bringing to the market and the role models of female-led companies coming out of Ireland and going on to make it big. Within a couple of years and with more of the support we have been giving them these companies and many more about which we have not heard will fill the gap and be the role models. It is very exciting.

It is very interesting that, anecdotally, Enterprise Ireland and others are reporting that it is women at middle management levels who tend to come out and become entrepreneurs. We can increase and accelerate this trend and encourage women by giving them an insight into how business works, encouraging them to fix problems that they see in their organisations and perhaps receive support from their organisations for spin off companies and bring them back in-house later. This is an opportunity for us. These women are smart and in the “superwoman” phase of their careers, when they probably have children who need them and elderly parents, as well as being at the apex of their careers. Given that they are superwomen, perhaps they can spin out and build companies if they receive enough support and enthusiasm. Given that they are already doing it, the question is how we can help them to continue.

This is a wonderful time. The trends are all positive and the funding and supports are in place. While there are cultural and environmental issues, they apply across the board and if we keep up the level of awareness and the Government talking about start-ups, we will be doing very well. We want to keep hearing the Taoiseach talk about start-ups and the potential of great, innovative, domestic companies to build strong businesses for Ireland in global markets.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I call Ms Anna Porter, an award winning student at the recent BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, to discuss her project entitled, "Why do Women Stay in STEM Careers?" She is most welcome and probably one of the youngest speakers we have had at the committee. We are most interested in hearing about her project.

Ms Anna Porter:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for inviting me to speak, particularly Senator Mary White, whom I met at this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

I am in transition year in Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock and I also live in Blackrock. I love science and I hope to study chemistry and biology for my leaving certificate. I participated in the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition three times, in the SciFest competition and in the Northern Ireland young scientist competition. I love doing project work and carrying out research. I noticed that in all these competitions the majority of judges were male. Last summer, I decided to look at the statistics and this was the beginning of my research.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These are important subjects and, with such a rapidly changing economy, we need an increasing number of people with a STEM qualification. Education in these subjects is essential to create a future generation in a highly qualified workforce capable of critical thinking and solving real world problems such as global warming, disappearing habitats and Third World hunger.

Recent figures from the CSO show that in Ireland less than 25% of the almost 180,000 people working in STEM careers are women. That is less than one quarter of the STEM workforce. A report published by the Forfás expert group on future skills needs in 2012 stated that Irish companies will have an estimated 44,500 job openings for people with high-level ICT skills in the coming six years. In order to prevent a shortfall and to ensure that Ireland can compete in the global market, we cannot ignore 50% of the talent pool.

The problem is not just in Ireland but a global phenomenon. Statistics in Europe and America show a similar gender bias. Why are women not fairly represented? Men and women are different but neither gender is less able to do STEM. Having both sexes being equally represented in the workforce would maximize creativity, innovation and experience. Many studies have been carried out to find a reason for the imbalance. The majority seem to focus on why women do not go into STEM careers or why, when they do enter STEM careers, they drop out. I decided to investigate why women choose to work in STEM and, as a result, come up with recommendations to encourage more women to follow in their footsteps.

I contacted a number of women who had worked in STEM careers for ten years or more. I interviewed three of these women. My aim was to do an online survey but before I designed the survey I needed to identify themes and ideas on which to base the questions. I also did a lot of reading of previous reports, news articles and books. I wanted to be as informed on the topic as I could be before I published my survey online. I compiled my survey and tested it. I then published a final version online.

To distribute my survey, I e-mailed women and organisations, including Women in Technology and Science, WITS, and Women into Science and Engineering, WISE. All were eager to help and posted about it in newsletters and websites. I was excited to follow the survey as it went out on social media, particularly Twitter. I closed the survey on 14 December 2014 with a sample size of 216 respondents and began to analyse the data using both OpenOffice Calc and Microsoft Office Excel.

I was delighted to see a fair cross section of women working in STEM careers represented in the survey. The responses came from both academia and industry, with about 60% from academia. The percentages for women working in the different fields of STEM varied, with 54% working in science and only 5% in mathematics. A genuine interest or passion for STEM seems to be the main reason a woman would choose to study a STEM subject in third level and continue to a career in STEM. Some 81% of respondents cited interest as the main influence. Teachers and parents appear to be the main human influences in a woman's choice of STEM, with teachers rated at 74% and parents at 65%. Guidance counsellors appear to be less influential than parents and teachers and rated quite low, sometimes having a negative influence.

A large majority of respondents believed role models were important in the choice to do STEM in college and as a career. Peer pressure, which affects me, was quoted by at least a third of the respondents as a major factor.

A number of negative factors cited included difficulties in managing the family-work balance, the lack of job security, sexism-positive bias toward the male employee, the general culture and a lack of clarity about job prospects having studied STEM subjects. The workload and administration duties in a STEM job were cited as the least favourite aspects.

My study made the following recommendations: STEM subjects needed to be presented in as interesting a way as possible at school level; the subjects needed to be taught in a way that would appeal to students in general and, in particular, stimulate girls’ interest in, love of and curiosity in the subject to counteract gender stereotyping; it was essential teachers received additional CPD training to support them in providing a classroom environment which fostered gender equality - positive reinforcement by the teacher is important to encourage a girl’s long-term interest in STEM; parents needed to be more informed to guide their daughters in choosing STEM subjects; guidance counsellors needed better support in respect of information on the wide variety of STEM careers available; role models should be advocated and more females in the STEM field might help - another point that was brought up, however, was that role models did not necessarily have to be female to encourage a girl into taking STEM subjects; more flexibility regarding workload and family in terms of job sharing, the provision of crèche facilities and retraining after parental leave, as STEM careers are fast paced - therefore, it is important that parents be comfortable in taking parental leave before resuming their jobs; this may be where we are losing much of the STEM workforce; and encouraging Government, industry and schools and colleges to work together more to maximise the impact of their programmes on students, teachers, parents, guidance counsellors and people in general to make sure information was getting out.

These are my recommendations. I hope to conduct a more in-depth analysis of my data and enter my project in the SciFest competition in May. I enjoyed working on my project very much and thank the committee for listening to my presentation.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Ms Porter.

Mary White (Fianna Fail)
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The two ladies were first class. They were both "wows". It was a pleasure to listen to them.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Ms Porter said less than one quarter of females had a STEM background.

Ms Anna Porter:

Less than 25% of almost 180,000 people in the STEM workforce are female.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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What choices were available to them? In what other directions did they go? What subjects did they do instead of STEM?

Ms Anna Porter:

Teaching is female dominated, but I do not have those statistics.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Bhí sin an suimúil and bhain mé an taitneamh as. Culture is an interesting aspect of this issue. Cultural factors in teaching and nursing, for example, have led to a gender imbalance in these professions. There is also a cultural background to the gender imbalance in respect of women in enterprise. Education plays a massive role in that regard, while flexibility in work practices is also important. Ms Bushnell worked in the United States, where there is even less flexibility and maternity leave arrangements and so on are not as good. I advocate stronger supports to provide flexibility for women in enterprise. We heard about the flying entrepreneur in Belgium who would come and take the reins of a business to cover those on maternity leave, etc.

How do these two focuses on supports in Ireland and the United States affect the outcome? Both presentations were interesting.

With regard to empirical and evidence-based research, I read Ms Porter's report earlier and it was impressive.

Ms Niamh Bushnell:

That is a great question about the difference between female entrepreneurs here and the United States. The Deputy is correct that there are no supports of that nature for women who have kids and want to be entrepreneurs. What helps as an entrepreneur if one has young kids is that one can choose one's own hours to work, which is great. That helped me because I had my son in 2009 and started my first start-up when he was two years old. I could spend an hour with him in the morning and then go into my home office - the proverbial working out of a basement - work for a few hours, get stuff done and make conference calls before checking on him and returning to the office. Even though somebody else had to mind him - in my case, my husband who also had a flexible arrangement in his profession - it allowed me not to leave him all the time at a young age and not to see him when I was working. The positive side of having young kids and becoming an entrepreneur is that there is no clocking in and clocking out. A person may end up working late hours, or early in the morning or having to be creative about what he or she is doing, but it gives flexibility to choose the hours he or she works and to be deliberate about when he or she works. However, he or she will end up working long weekends and so on. It is not ideal, but the flexibility was massive for me knowing that I did not have to get up every morning and take the subway into the city to a job. Every day was different and I could be there at different times. That was important and added a great value to our family life. I can only comment from personal experience.

Ms Niamh Bushnell:

Again, through my lens as a person who has been back five months since leaving the United States, there is an over-emphasis here on funding in the early stages. Early on start-ups are concerned about getting funding, which is not the case in the United States, partly because such funding is not available. One cannot get early stage funding in the United States for feasibility studies, demonstrations and so on to build a minimum viable product, MVP. People get on with it by looking to friends and family to support them and "bootstrap". It is great to provide funding in the early stages, but I am concerned that companies may spend more time focusing on securing the funding than figuring the market they are entering. I would love to see more emphasis on validating the market and predicating the funding on market validation at certain stages. One does not have to have the complete map of the market in one's hands, but I still see companies that focus on funding and when they get it, they still have not figured the product market fit, what the market looks like, how big it is, who the customers and competitors are and not spent time in the market pressing the flesh. Sometimes in Ireland it feels a little like putting the cart before the horse when it comes to early stage funding.

Later stage funding is hard to get, as everybody says. Here it is hard to get series A, B or C funding. It is challenging to obtain funding in excess of €1 million.

Anyway, the good news is that then we co-invest with great partners in the United States and the United Kingdom. They bring that smart-market focus or emphasis to the start-up to help it to get into those markets.

We need more later-stage funding for companies here. It is all about scaling. I joke that an entrepreneur is a tourist until she starts scaling. A woman is not an entrepreneur until she starts scaling a business. Ideally, it is not until she has revenue but at the least she must have customers. Until an entrepreneur has a product she is not at the races. It is a question of lean, lean, lean until she can get to there. Then, we should focus all our support on picking winners and helping those companies to scale with funding, market intelligence, role models and mentoring etc. That is my view generally on the matter.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Ms Porter, you referred to the project you are entering into the SciFest in May. What type of analysis are you hoping to bring to the project?

Ms Anna Porter:

I am hoping to do some cross-referencing, for example, with ages. People of certain ages took the view that certain people were more influential. I hope to look at that and see how they compare.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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That sounds very interesting.

Ms Bushnell, there was an interesting point in your report. It adverts to US research showing that private technology companies led by women achieve a 35% higher return on investment than those owned by men. That was an interesting fact given the amount of caution that women seem to demonstrate in terms of their approach to entrepreneurship and their aversion to risk. The two must be connected.

Ms Niamh Bushnell:

It is a great story. Women are great leaders and scalers of companies. When they are given enough support in terms of funding and when they have a sense that something is going well, they are the best operators to bring it to fruition. That is probably one of the reasons. They are multi-taskers. There are very good with people and operationally. That is probably one of the reasons as well.

We talk about the exits in investment. By the time a company has exited, these women have led the company through. They have been measured, deliberate and strategic about what they have brought. Let us consider the heads of the multinational companies here. They are not all females but many of them are females. These companies include Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook and Vodafone. I am missing some but these are all headed by women. These are women who operate at a very high level operationally. They operate tight and successful ships and they are great leaders. If we give women the necessary support at the early stage in order that they stay with it and can build their vision over time, then it is likely they will be more successful than men at bringing it to fruition.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. That concludes our deliberations with the deputation this afternoon. Thank you for coming to engage with the committee today. I have no doubt that we will be hearing from both of you again.

I remind members that the select committee will meet next Tuesday, 17 February to consider the Revised Estimates for the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.