REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE BOLTON TRUST
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE BOLTON TRUST
I am delighted to be here to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Bolton Trust with you, and I'd like to say a particular thanks to Gráinne O’Rourke for the invitation. Ireland at the time when the Trust was established was a very different place from the Ireland of today. Prevailing economic conditions forced even our most highly-skilled graduates to depart the country in search of employment and opportunity, a situation the founders of the Trust were determined to change. Applying a voluntary, public service ethos to the goal of establishing and maintaining a sustainable structure for indigenous enterprise creation, twenty years on, we celebrate their success at that task. The flourishing of the incubator-style Docklands Innovation Park today is an apt tribute to the approach adopted by the Trust and a testament to their clear-sighted practicality in providing such a resource.
A critical factor in the capacity of any economy to grow, to support employment for all its citizens and to increase wealth and prosperity is the willingness of its people to engage in entrepreneurial activity. It is vital to build a climate that fosters and promotes a thriving entrepreneurial culture if we are to sustain and capitalise on the substantial gains made by our economy in recent years. The entrepreneurial environment in Ireland has improved dramatically of late, and is enhanced by a network of supports that guarantees our position as one of the most entrepreneurial economies in the world.
Innovative entrepreneurship demands a particular mindset that blends curiosity, creativity and problem solving, a desire to question established patterns, and the ability to apply knowledge, insights and intuition to change them.
Against such a background, and having grown from the Dublin Institute of Technology, the Trust’s focus on education and inculcating entrepreneurial skills is not surprising. The Annual Student Enterprise Competition and the Docklands Innovation Awards display the foresight of the Trust in acknowledging the need to give students and entrepreneurs the encouragement and the wherewithal to realise their full potential, while at the same time nurturing the combination of skills required of today’s entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship’s role is not confined to the economy. It is a key factor in forging greater social inclusion, which makes it all the more important that the opportunity of creating a business is offered to everyone who wishes. I have in mind in particular women and immigrants, two groups that are under-represented among existing business owners today. In an economy and a society that supports itself through the talents and skills of its people, it is vital that all those who have contributions to make should be enabled to do so. A society that utilises only half of its resources can reap no more than half of its potential.
The gender imbalance among Irish entrepreneurs, while better than many similar countries, needs to be righted. At local level, County and City Enterprise Boards have done sterling work in this area, complementing their mainstream activities with specific strategies aimed at female entrepreneurs, like the Women-in-Business initiative. These strategies are tailored to provide women entrepreneurs with support systems to enhance their self-confidence and encourage them to start new businesses. Last year alone, 5,000 women participated in such courses, a clear sign of the determination of Irish women to gain a foothold in this sector.
The CEBs also encourage the active participation of women in training programmes like the “Start your Own Business” course. Again, the uptake has been phenomenal: since 2004, over 13,700 women received training on the Boards’ programmes nationwide. These and other networks like “Women in Technology” and “Network Ireland” bring together successful female entrepreneurs with those who are just starting out, facilitating the exchange of invaluable information and experience between the two “generations” of entrepreneur. Only last week I opened a conference on female entrepreneurship, attended by two mould-breaking Irish entrepreneurs, Anne Hearty of CPL and Angela Kennedy of Megazyme. We need to put successful entrepreneurs like this in the spotlight, so that other women starting off can see just what can be achieved.
In our immigrant population lies another underdeveloped seam of entrepreneurship, waiting to be mined. Attending the Ethnic Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in February, I saw abundant evidence of the skills and fresh eyes that lie within our immigrant community, hungry for opportunities. With half the chance and some support they will take the necessary leap. Given that the impetus for establishing the Bolton Trust came from our own emigrant experience, watching our graduates leave the country, there is a particularly strong onus on us to ensure that we make best use of this extraordinary pool of recently-arrived talent. Initiatives such as “Emerge”, the “Area Partnerships” and the “Institute for Minority Entrepreneurship” will help to drive social integration through enterprise, as will the “First Step” initiative, which performs an valuable service in offering access to finance to immigrant entrepreneurs.
Mindful of the overarching theme of the conference- Enterprise and the Way Forward - I would like to acknowledge the overall performance of the enterprise sector; a sector that has been pivotal to the success of the economy in recent years and upon which much of Ireland’s future economic success will depend. There are almost half a million more people at work now than six years ago and while our overall economic performance remains strong there is an ongoing need to increase the number of high-quality jobs and knowledge intensive investment if we are to sustain our performance.
In an increasingly competitive world, a greater proportion of the country’s wealth creation will, in future, depend on indigenous companies with the potential to grow and to conquer international markets. I saw wonderful examples of such success firsthand on my visit in May this year to the leading Irish biotech firms at Enterprise Ireland’s BioLink USA–Ireland conference.
With the ongoing political good-news story in Northern Ireland, the concept of an all-island economy is fast becoming a reality. A range of North-South activities like the Cross-Border Entrepreneurship initiative, the participation of companies from both jurisdictions in trade missions, and the continuing work between the Enterprise Agencies and InterTrade Ireland are all concrete expressions in an economic sense of the new political understanding on the island.
The Bolton Trust’s pioneering work will continue to be integral to the development of entrepreneurial potential in the country’s life, both in its example and in its practical effect. I congratulate you on your vision in establishing the Trust in 1987, on your determination in staying the course, and on the successes you have enjoyed to date. Congratulations.