Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I appreciate what the Minister of State has said, the first thing we need to do is to measure exactly what is happening within the system. If one cannot measure, one cannot manage. If we do not have the statistics to identify exactly the incidence of success and failure, it is very hard to put things in place. There is a seeding ground for enterprise which involves those who are the sons and daughters of entrepreneurs themselves, people from middle management in companies, people with a high level of education and those with access to finance. Geography is also an enormous factor because of the issue of access to markets. I call on the Government to implement a method of obtaining the necessary statistics to provide us with a clear insight into the incidence of entrepreneurship at all levels of society and to establish an implementation group to ensure that the tools the Government is currently using can be added to if necessary to allow us to harness the energies of everyone in society.

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