Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy that we need to change the ethos and culture. I would not regard bankruptcy as a mark of business stature but many individuals, who have developed very successful businesses in the United State providing considerable employment, were particularly unsuccessful in their early ventures into business. This is one of the reasons we are reducing the timeframe and not just to give people some hope and light at the end of the tunnel. Where people have adventurous business ideas which do not work out even though they have tried to develop them in good faith, they should not be basically disabled for many years into the foreseeable future from exercising their entrepreneurial spirit in a different venture which one would hope would be a good deal more successful than the one which may have led to bankruptcy.

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