Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support my colleagues here. There was a discussion earlier about entrepreneurship on priority questions and the Minister, Deputy Bruton, launched the global entrepreneurship monitor, GEM, report a few days ago. Was he disappointed that there was such negative feedback and that among prospective entrepreneurs, particularly the young and women, fear of failure, lack of ambition and funding are still fundamental issues with which they must contend? Would it be fair to say that the Government's approach to local development - I speak from the other side of the fence as somebody who has been involved for many years - needs to be much more proactive at local level and we need to get away from the austerity mindset, which seems to be predicated, perhaps with the ESRI report yesterday, on something that might continue for the rest of a lost decade? Deputy Bruton will be aware, for example, that the Northside community and business centre of which I am a long-standing director recently launched a programme to encourage and support young women entrepreneurs. Is the Minister certain that the existing rules, in particular, in the Department of Social Protection, do enough to facilitate women who have the idea of starting a business?

See this speech in context