Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I thank Labour Party Senators for giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue. Although we agree with much of the amendment proposed by Sinn Féin, my party will be supporting the motion because we do not believe the principles set out in it should be lost. Perhaps the issues raised by Sinn Féin should be the subject of a debate in their own right. I do not want to repeat what others have said about TalkTalk. The issue of MBNA was also substantially addressed by Senators from the north west. I have great faith in the Minister of State, his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and his special adviser and my fellow county man, Conor Quinn, who is exceptionally talented.

I would like to see an audit of all IDA and Enterprise Ireland supported companies as a matter of urgency to assess the likelihood that they will encounter difficulties or relocate elsewhere. We could then take measures to ensure they do not consider a move and provide assistance if they require it to expand operations in this country.

From an IDA perspective, certain towns lack the infrastructure to support the expectations of particular companies. As a former CEO within the chambers of commerce movement, I am acutely aware of the meetings held with the IDA during the years in which officials stated it was an issue to do with connectivity, broadband, access and all the rest of it. I watched all of these matters being dealt with during the Celtic tiger years in many of the regional centres, but there still seems to be an issue. I wonder what is the level of grant indicated when it comes to a discussion with company A or company B in towns such as Ballaghaderreen or Carrick-on-Shannon and, in particular, the gateway centres such as Sligo, Letterkenny, Waterford and Galway because I am not convinced that it is what it should be to achieve the results we would like to see resulting in announcements in these areas. Clearly, companies will want to locate in Dublin; it is where they will want to be. We must make it more attractive for them, therefore, to locate in other places and explain why. If that means allocating an extra few quid at times, we must be open to doing this. The MBNA story was about a guy, a senior executive in the company, having connections with the part of the country in question. That is what helped to push the project over the line. We cannot depend on this happening, however, in Waterford, Sligo, Letterkenny and other parts of the country and need to be innovative in that regard.

As we look to the future, we need to look at entrepreneurship education. That is not to say we want everybody to be an entrepreneur in the most literal sense of the word and create jobs. However, there should be modules on entrepreneurship in all aspects of education. I wrote a paper with others on the introduction of entrepreneurship education from primary level on. It is about flexibility and a particular way of thinking. It is not necessarily about creating jobs but about developing an agility in one's life to to move, whether it be a thought process, physically or whatever else. It is not about being like Denis O'Brien or Senator Feargal Quinn. One can be an entrepreneurial librarian. I am sure we all hope Ronan O'Gara will be entrepreneurial with the ball on Sunday morning against Italy. It is an idea we presented to the then Minister and the Secretary General of the Department of Education and Science as it was called at the time. The difficulty within the Department and government was that there was a lack of agility; the concern was they would never be able to connect education and enterprise in the way they wanted. We need to stop thinking of government in terms of pigeon holes and see it as seamless. Departmental interaction needs to be seamless, without an agenda or difficulties with personalities or anything else. That is a challenge for the Minister and his colleagues, one I know he would like to overcome. He should not consider any of the barriers in front of him, he should merely go through them if he needs to in the interests of moving matters forward.

Of the indigenous sectors, agriculture is consistently seen as a burden. We meetings with the IFA and the lobby groups as such a burden. It is not. As somebody who for many years has been a beef exporter - I export 250 tonnes a week to 46 countries around the world - I am acutely aware of the levels of employment that can be created. While there was a lull period throughout what we would have described as the Celtic tiger years, the food industry is back in a major way and we need to seize its potential. Senator White has had a long career in it and shown what someone with an entrepreneurial spirit can achieve. If we could divert scarce resources from other sectors to the ones that can be most productive for us in terms of job creation, the food and agriculture industies are the ones we would pick. The Minister should not, therefore, see the agriculture indusry as a burden but seize its potential and the opportunity presented.

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for his indulgence. Another meeting at Farmleigh is being planned. The meeting a was good one. It highlighted the arts as having significant potential. Let us build on this. It was certainly a good start.

The bankruptcy laws need to be changed. That is not to salute or help those who have been in any way reckless in their business dealings. Considering the crash, there are many entrepreneurial brains, people who can create jobs whom we are sentencing to 12 years when they will not be able to use their brains to help us to help ourselves. We really need to look at this issue.