Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for this opportunity and for allowing me to follow Senator Mary White's interesting speech. With the young people in the Visitors Gallery, I read and listened to the Minister's speech and listened to Senator Mary White and others. What impressed me was the fact that the Minister is talking about innovation and entrepreneurship. When I left school many years ago I was the only person in my class of 48 people who planned to go into business, perhaps because I came from a business background. In those days the majority of people had the objective and ambition of getting a secure job in the Civil Service or somewhere similar. I mention this for the young visitors because Ireland has changed, and Senator Mary White has talked about that, particularly in the past 20 years. Senator Mary White was helpful to me last year when I was asked to speak in Argentina and Brazil about entrepreneurship and the Irish success story. I read the book by her husband, Mr. Padraic White and Mr. Ray MacSharry about the Celtic tiger and, as the Minister said, it is like reading an exciting novel to see what happened and find out about the success.

I mention this because of the importance of education, which the Minister of State touched on in his speech. I would love young people growing up to see entrepreneurship as a real opportunity for them, to create their own jobs rather than have somebody else create jobs for them. Education is changing. Yesterday I spoke to the vocational education committees about looking for the customer. The question used to be whether the customer of a school is the student or the parents. Whatever about the past, the customer of a school is the student. In the past we educated people to the age of 19 and told them they had enough education to get a job. Now we have lifelong learning and our job in education is to teach students how to learn because they will have to learn again and again, will probably have four or five jobs in their lifetimes or better still establish their own businesses and achieve five or six different jobs in their lifetimes.

A few years ago I wrote a book that was published in 11 countries and did well in Japan. I have been to Japan several times and got to know Mr. Masatoshi Ito, a Japanese retailer. He visited me a couple of years ago and we toured supermarkets. As we left my Lucan supermarket to return to my home in Howth he asked me when I started in business and how many shops I had at the time. We had 18 shops at that time and I started in 1960 with one shop. He replied that he started in 1952 and that in 1960 he, too, had one shop. I asked how many shops he had now, and after checking with his interpreter he worked out that he had 14,600. He owned a company in the United States called 7-Eleven, among others. I asked Mr. Ito what made him different from all the other retailers who had one shop in 1960. He asked me to let him think about it. Half an hour later as we got out of the car he answered, "Whether you believe you can, or you cannot, you are right." He told me he plays tennis and if he approaches a game thinking he has no chance, he is right, he has no chance. If he goes into the game believing he can beat his opponent, he is also right. That change of attitude has happened and Ireland has gained confidence. There is even a danger we have become complacent about it in recent years. The ability to train and educate for entrepreneurship is essential if we are to create success in the medium and small enterprises and enable them to grow.

In the past few years the Minister for Education and Science asked me to chair the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment committee that introduced the leaving certificate applied curriculum. What an interesting development that was. Until then the only way one could do the leaving certificate was, after two years of study, to go into a room for three hours and write down everything one knew about a particular subject. The leaving certificate applied was different. It said there are other intelligences, not just the ones of communication in written form. Spoken communication is just one example. Professor Howard Gardner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education noted the other intelligences that are not being measured. The leaving certificate applied measured only in written form in those days. I learned that there are bright, intelligent, active young people who are at the back of the class because they were regarded as poor at writing, reading and, perhaps, sums. They were put at the back of the class at seven, ten or 13 years of age, and stayed there.

The leaving certificate applied ensured there would be continuous assessment so that there was an opportunity to judge such children on other types of intelligence rather than just their ability to pass written examinations. One could see people grow and develop and those formerly regarded as failures at the back of the class suddenly became much better. I was very pleased with the Minister of State's words when he talked about small businesses and enterprises in terms of how they interact with those people who believe they have no chance of succeeding without becoming much bigger. The best ideas sometimes come from very small companies that nurture and develop little ideas.

I am patron of the Irish Association of Supported Employment and one of the things it is interested in is the O2 ability awards that Aisling Foundation produce. Last year, a man called Gar Holohan won the award with his company Aura Sports and Leisure. He identified a need for swimming pools for people with disabilities. It was a wonderful success story. There are a number of these fitness centres, and they are not only for people who are disabled. Mr. Holohan was able to include people with varying levels of ability, and they were able to succeed. That came about from the spark of an idea through someone who was innovative and seized the opportunity. We have to encourage everyone to develop confidence in generating and developing new ideas, and show them it is possible regardless of the size of enterprise. The Minister of State is right in his belief that it is only a question of whether one believes one can. If we can instil in people's minds that they can do it, they will achieve far more.

I was on the board of North Dublin Partnership when I was elected to the Seanad and I learned something from the experience. I was disappointed I could not remain with the partnership as an elected Member of the Oireachtas. It was set up in the 1980s to create jobs in Finglas. One of the difficulties, I found, was that there was always an assumption when people in different parts of the country came together to form an association to promote job creation. They would form a committee and then the first thing they did was to send someone to the Government in Dublin to help them develop the enterprise, instead of doing it themselves. I was delighted to find in the North Dublin Partnership a level of enthusiasm which ensured the people there did something for themselves rather than asking somebody else to come in to do it.

One of the points Senator Mary White dealt with concerned the difficulties sometimes encountered in setting up a small business compared to pursuing an initiative to invite in foreign direct investment. I sat on the committee for better regulation and was very impressed that the Government's aim and ambition was to reduce the regulations that stifle business. Approximately ten or 12 years ago a person who was planning to set up business in Ireland contacted me. He did not come to Ireland in the end because he was made more welcome in other countries through the reduction in bureaucracy. In the event, I believe he set up in Scotland instead because at that stage the Scots had decided they wanted these jobs to go to them rather than Ireland. We must always ensure that while our regulations may be in place for the best of purposes, they should not stifle initiative.

One law that affects small and medium businesses concerns me. It was passed by this House, and I had not noticed it until later. It is the Consumer Protection Act 2007, section 48(4)(a), which is concerned with the National Consumer Agency. I remember it going through and I had not noticed, but it gave the Minister the right — although he has yet to empower it — to say that if a customer pays by credit card he or she cannot be charged extra for using a credit card as against using cash. That seemed very sensible as it went through the Oireachtas. However, if the Minister introduces this it means a vendor cannot differentiate in favour of a cash customer. If somebody offers to pay for a product in a small shop by credit card and the shopowner asks for cash instead, he or she will not be able, in the event, to offer a discount for cash — even though the credit card company will take a percentage off the price paid to the retailer. I mention this because it is part of the onus on legislators to use impact analysis on every aspect of legislation. Things we tend to do very well sometimes hinder the opportunity to achieve success in other ways.

I shall leave one thought with Members, because it is something that frequently crops up. Sometimes people make the mistake of trying to win new business all the time instead of looking after their existing enterprise, and this frustrates me. If we could only get it across to people to look after their customers rather than spending time trying to get new clients, that would be worthwhile. Last year I had an experience where my wife told me that a young woman with an English accent had been phoning me, at home. My wife trusts me a great deal, and she was letting me know that this woman had phoned three times and would not tell her what it was all about. Next time I was home, the phone rang and this young woman from England said she represented The Economist newspaper, my subscription was running out, and she invited me to renew it. I was happy to renew it and had seen there was a 35% reduction. She said that did not apply to existing customers, only new ones. She said: "Don't blame me. I am actually only doing my job". I no longer get The Economist. My wife takes it, which solved the problem in that way. I mention this because part of the task we have is to persuade people not to expect the Government to do everything. They can ensure the Government opens the doors but must do the work themselves.