Feargal Quinn (Independent)

The Minister of State is welcome. I know his heart is in the right place because he and I have come across each other quite a lot in recent times. If I may, I will tell the Minister of State a little story. I met an Irishman on a plane a few years who was on the board of an American company which had received a proposal from one of its employees who had a new concept for a new task or new job the company could do. It would involve taking on 37 people and the board agreed to run with it. The Irishman on the board of that company asked what would happen if it did not succeed and the other members said that if it did not succeed they would let the new people go. It was very easy to start a company that would take on 37 people and I understand that company was successful in that respect.

I told that story because I agree entirely with the motion. I have no problem with it but I would sound a word of caution about the sections of the motion stating "proposes that greater protections be put in place for employees facing collective redundancy situations; and proposes the Government review existing legislation to consider that a longer notice period than 30 days should be provided by a company ...". If we put more constraints and restrictions on a person considering opening a business and say that we have certain rules and regulations that he or she must abide by, we will discourage some of those people from proceeding with businesses that might otherwise have opened. We should make sure that in trying to protect jobs, ensuring that proper notice is provided and doing all the right things, and our hearts are all in the right place on this, we do not discourage the creation of jobs. There was a danger of failure involved in the taking on of 37 people in the proposal put by that employee to the board, but we should not be afraid of failure. Let us be aware that we should not be afraid of failure.

Senator Mary White referred to an article I quoted this morning. It was a smashing article in yesterday's edition of The Times. It was so envious of us. A sentence I liked in the article reads: "Twitter's decision to base itself in Dublin is a blow for the UK." Another sentence read that both David Cameron and Boris Johnson may now be drowning their sorrows with whisky, not whiskey. I love that quote. The best quote of all was the one at the end of the article. I have given the newspaper to Senator White but the sentence referred to the story about the Scotsman, the Englishman and the Irishman, and the Irishman was smiling. There is no doubt he was because of what happened yesterday with news that Twitter will be opening in Ireland. The decision was made on foot of a battle against other possible locations. One of the reasons we are able to attract businesses here is that we are able to make it easy for a company to open a new business. That is foreign direct investment.

I know the Minister of State knows something of what is happening in Drogheda. RTE has put its heart behind exploring how it can manage to promote something that is good for Ireland and how it can create jobs. It is not creating jobs but encouraging an environment where jobs can be created. The new programme is titled "Local Heroes - A Town Fights Back" and it will not be broadcast until November. The town that has been selected is the Minister of State's town of Drogheda and many interesting things are happening there. I will refer to one of them that I found interesting. There are six experts coming in to help. One of them is Jerry Kennelly from County Kerry, whom Senators O'Sullivan and Daly would know well. Jerry Kennelly sold his business for something of the order of €150 million three or four years ago. He decided he wanted to stay in Kerry, although when talking to him last week he referred to "one of our companies in Silicon Valley". I asked him what he meant by that and he replied "We have a couple of companies in Silicon Valley." That gives members some idea of his success. He said he wanted to create, encourage and develop entrepreneurship at an early age in Kerry.

I was in Tralee last Friday when Jerry Kennelly had arranged for 600 transition year students to go there for Blue Sky Day. He brought 50 students from Drogheda - from Our Lady's College, Greenhills and the Christian Brothers. It was a very interesting day. These were all 15 and 16 year olds. They heard of people who were successful at a very early age. This was not foreign direct investment; these were young people who were setting up businesses. I will tell Members about one particular business. A young lady, Tara Hutton, from County Kildare went to a wedding last year. I met the young lady and she was wearing high heels and looked very stylish. She is now in fifth year. While she was at that wedding she stood on some confetti and her aunt said to her "I see you have got designer shoes." She said: "What do you mean?" Her aunt said "You have got those red soled shoes." She said "No I have not, there is a bit of confetti stuck to them." Because she was thinking entrepreneurship she set up a company. She is only in fifth year and at 16 years of age she now has customers in 22 countries. She is selling a pack of coloured soles one puts on the soles of one's shoes for €17.99. We talk about entrepreneurship, whether it be Senator Mary White or Mary Ann O'Brien, and it is great to see the number of entrepreneurs we have in Ireland. What Jerry Kennelly is encouraging is for people to become entrepreneurs at a very early age. That was only one of the stories. I could continue for hours. What I am essentially saying to the Minister of State is that I am enthusiastic about what can happen.

Another man called Noel Toolin is looking after the tourist end of the market down there and he said we have got great tourism in the Boyne Valley but people do not associate Drogheda with it so we want Drogheda to be the bedroom of the Boyne Valley. It is a simple enough concept.

The reason I am going to some pains in highlighting these examples is that we must make sure that working is more attractive than all the other benefits one can get. In the good times we were reasonably generous, understandably, to people who fell on hard times but we now have a problem in regard to some of those cases in that it does not pay some people to work. We had a debate on this matter last week and a debate on it the other day at the enterprise committee. I mention it because we have a concern. We must encourage people to set up businesses and not discourage people from staying out of work because they cannot afford to come to work. I would say to all speakers, including the proposers of the Sinn Féin motion, that it is worthwhile having this debate today. We should do more of it. I encourage the sort of thinking that is emerging today to make sure that we develop businesses but we should not ask somebody else to do it, we should do it ourselves.