Address by Mr. Noel Treacy T.D. Minister for Science, Technology and Commerce, on the Occasion of His Presentation of the First Shell LiveWire Awards, Ireland in Croke Park on 15 September 1999, at 11.00 am

I am delighted to be with you all today to acknowledge and present the first ever Shell Live Wire Awards in Ireland.

It is only last April that I officially launched this exciting project which was developed by Shell in conjunction with Bank of Ireland and the County and City Enterprise Boards. Its primary aim is to support youth development and specifically to encourage young people to become interested in setting up in business and in working for themselves. This occasion is the first annual business awards for young people, between 16 and 30 years old, who have started their own business within the past twelve months.

In this short period of time, there has been over 200 registrations into Live Wire and, more importantly, over 35 entries into this first start-up awards competition.

Shell Live Wire was originally set up in Scotland in 1982. It is now running successfully in Australia, Chile, Holland, the Netherlands and South Africa. The extension of the LiveWire project to Ireland was welcomed wholeheartedly by me when I first met with Mr Colin Wilson, Shell LiveWire Director for Scotland and Northern Ireland just a few short months ago.

At this stage, I wish to pay special tribute to Shell which have shown through their support of a number of community programmes in the fields of enterprise, education and environment, that they are firmly committed to promoting and encouraging an enterprise environment. Since its inception in Scotland, over 150,000 young people between the ages of 16-30 years have entered the scheme and received valuable assistance. As a result, many very substantial business's have been developed. Shell believe that the same sort of results will be achieved in Ireland where they expect over 2,000 registrations during the year ahead.

The City and County Enterprise Boards have played an active role in the promotion and development of this programme in Ireland. They operate at a local level providing the first point of access to the full range of support services required by small business. I would like to take this opportunity to again place on record my appreciation and that of the Government of the role of the Enterprise Boards in spearheading local development since their inception by us in 1992. They have assisted in the creation of over 16,000 jobs at a total cost of about £60 million. Each job created affects not just the fortunes of the persons employed but those of their families. The success of each small business created contributes to the general sense of confidence, self achievement and raised aspiration of the local community.

I would also like to acknowledge Bank of Ireland's sponsorship and their recognition of the importance of this initiative to new businesses.

The Shell LiveWire initiative is an excellent example of inter-country co-operation, bringing public and private money together to help the young people of Ireland develop the next generation of new business.

Entrepreneurship is both an exciting and formidable challenge. It requires discipline, flair, integrity, self belief and vision. Entrepreneurs can be discouraged by the effort required to pull together all of the information which they need to get started. The range of skills and knowledge which they require may seem daunting for an aspiring entrepreneur. Production, marketing, accounting, finance, customers, employees, are but a few areas of vital importance. Entrepreneurs need to be all things, not only to all people, but also to themselves. The reality is that far too many new businesses fail because of lack of planning. Thus entrepreneurs must be constantly aware of changing trends in the real world of modern-day business. I particularly welcome the fact that experience in other countries has shown that the failure rate of new businesses has been greatly reduced amongst young people starting up with Live Wires help.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to commend all of the young participants. Your hard work, diligence and determination is not only a credit to yourselves but an inspiration to all of us. I wish you well in your endeavours. The golden era of opportunity beckons - go and grasp it, in a very exciting modern Country.