The Celtic Tigress could get our flagging economy back on form

Sitting high above Manhattan on the 71st floor of the World Trade Centre, Michelle Lynch used to be able to feel the building sway and see helicopters fly by below her.

Economists take note - there have been sightings of a Celtic Tigress on the prowl. Female entrepreneurship is being touted in some quarters as the catalyst that could kick-start our flagging economy. But there is one slight problem - Ireland has to learn how to tap into this underutilised resource. A quick survey of business incubation centres carried out by Innovation revealed that women are still woefully underrepresented amongst founders of high-potential technology enterprises considered so critical to future economic growth. Just two of the 21 knowledge-based companies housed in Waterford Institute of Technology's Centre for Entrepreneurs are led by women, and the vast majority of entrepreneurs and senior executives of start-ups based at DCU's Invent centre are male. And there isn't a single female managing director, leader or founder in the 11 companies currently based in the Synergy Centre in the Institute of Technology (IT) Tallaght.

Although a number of very successful, innovative start-ups founded by women have passed through University College of Dublin's Nova incubation space, just four out of the 24 companies currently based there have women at the helm.

The 2006 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Irish Report gloomily confirmed that there has been no real sustained increase in the number of new female entrepreneurs emerging in this country over the last few years. Women in the most entrepreneurial of the developed OECD countries are far more active in setting up new businesses than their counterparts in Ireland.

Furthermore Irish men are two and a half times more likely than women to be early stage entrepreneurs.

"This is simply a lost resource as it reduces the number of new businesses that are being started in Ireland and shrinks the pool from which significant businesses can emerge in the future," the report said. "If women were to establish new enterprises at the same rate as men in Ireland, there would be as many new businesses being set up in Ireland per capita as there are in the United States."

So what can be done to improve this situation? The Small Business Forum has recommended targeting sectors where highly-skilled women work and promoting greater visibility for female entrepreneur role models.

A number of initiatives aimed at encouraging and supporting female entrepreneurs have sprung up around the country, from women in business networks to the Female Entrepreneurs Ireland Wales (FEIW) project which runs an enterprise training centre in Waterford IT specifically tailored to the needs of women in business.

But not matter how laudable all of these initiatives are, only time will tell whether Ireland is able to capture the Celtic Tigress.