merrion street

Pictured at the launch were Investor and Entrepreneur Sean O' Sullivan, Minister for Minister Richard Bruton and Noel Ruane, Polaris Venture Partners.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton today launched the report of the Entrepreneurship Forum. The Forum was established as part of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs 2013.

69 recommendations have been put forward by the Forum in their Report, many of which require Government action, but there are also some aimed at businesses, entrepreneurs and industry representative bodies to engage them in building a stronger entrepreneurial culture in Ireland.

Some of these include:

• Use of unoccupied and NAMA buildings for a total of 50,000 square feet of co-working space
• Mandatory training in commercialisation of business ideas for all third-level science, technology, engineering and maths students
• Changes to law to support employee stock option programmes
• A national education strategy for entrepreneurship at all levels of the education system
• A mentoring network driven by entrepreneurs
• Tax incentives for investment in enterprise
• In the long-term – a flat tax of 15-20% on all types of income

Minister Bruton said:

Launching the Report, Minister Bruton said:

Two thirds of all new jobs come from start-up businesses in the first five years of their existence. Entrepreneurs are the heroes of the economy, creating businesses, jobs and growth from which the rest of us benefit, and Ireland has some amazing entrepreneurs, but not nearly enough...We are determined to look at new ways of supporting and facilitating entrepreneurs so we can have more start-ups and ultimately more jobs. And that is why we have asked entrepreneurs themselves, people who have actually done it, to tell us what they think we need to do to achieve this goal.