Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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19. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the position regarding increasing volunteerism for one-to-one mentoring, whereby experienced entrepreneurs would provide advice and mentoring to new entrepreneurs, particularly in consideration of the immense benefits such advice and mentoring would have for a new start-up; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29921/14]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Under the Action Plan for Jobs 2013, Forfás was requested by my Department to carry out a review of mentoring services in Ireland. This report, entitled ‘Review of Business Mentoring Services in Ireland – July 2014’, has now been finalised and will be published shortly. The report contains a number of recommendations including on the need to expand the mentor population to include a higher proportion of volunteer mentors in areas of particular expertise (sectoral, market, technical etc.) The report also recommends the establishment of a working group by my Department to drive coordinated execution of a number of recommendations in the review, including the above recommendation.

The establishment of this group is now in train and the first meeting of the group is expected to take place in September.