Ethnic minorities: Untapped pool

ETHNIC Minorities represent an untapped pool of entrepreneurial ability in Ireland, and the Small Firms Association has called on the Government to allocate funding to provide training support to this significant resource.

Patricia Callan, director of the SFA yesterday called on the Government to commit mainstream funding to provide targeted training supports to ethnic minority entrepreneurs.

Ms Callan said: “Promoting entrepreneurship should become one of the Government’s top priorities, as businesses starting up have proven to be a key contributing factor to economic growth, and thus it is essential we have more entrepreneurs in times of economic downturn.”

Non-nationals make up more than 10% of our population and our workforce, at 420,000 and 200,000 people respectively.

Most of them are in the 24-44 years age bracket, the age at which most people set up in business.

And with only 28% of Irish nationals falling within this age bracket, she said: “Non-nationals will clearly become increasingly important in contributing to our pool of potential entrepreneurs.”

By leaving their own countries, these migrants have shown a willingness to face risk and uncertainty and strong motivation to generate income and secure a good quality of life.

“Indeed, we know from our own history, how entrepreneurial Irish people were when they moved abroad.”

In that sense it was a cause for concern that no specifically designed mainstream programme existed to help non nationals deal with the specific difficulties faced by them in this country when they try to start their own businesses.

Regulations in that regard were also too restrictive.

Any non-EU Economic Area national wishing to establish a business here must seek the permission of the Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform and transfer capital of €300,000 to the State to do so.