There has been an increase in the number of people setting up their own business, although a third of them feel they have no other option.

SIXTY female entrepreneurs employing 500 people with combined sales of €42 million meet today to plan strategies to grow their businesses.

BUSINESSPEOPLE are coming together to encourage entrepreneurs to follow their dream and start their own business in a unique competition worth €25,000.

IRELAND has one of the lowest levels of female entrepreneurship in the world, with disincentives such as a lack of maternity cover for the self-employed preventing women from going into business.

ALMOST 3,000 new companies are established here every month, helping Ireland to the top of a European list for business start-ups.

Ireland is now the most entrepreneurially active country in the EU and to the fore in Europe as a whole, according to the Irish Report of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 2003.