Olivia O'Leary did an excellent job chairing and there were several great speakers, with special note going to Suzanne Kelly, Tax Barrister for her challenging, erudite, and humorous presentation.

Another mention for all the wonderful, smart and passionate women who turned up to share and learn.  Network Dublin was one of the groups who helped to put the event together.

This is a reflection of some of the points made and some points of information worth checking out.

Sean Burke from EI told us a little about the grant landscape for entrepreneurs. He is intimately involved with Framework 7, which is an EU body and CIP (Competitiveness and Innovation Programme). There's a lot of grant money available under the programme but it is mostly available for technological innovation and not for service based entrepreneurship. Might be worth checking into but I'd say contacting your EI advisor (if you have one) is as good a place to go to find out what's available in funding. EI I'm sure will be tapped into European funds.

The number of female entrepreneurs is constantly growing. However, many of these women are setting up service businesses (rather than technology for instance). Support, either in the form of grants, training or tax breaks, is limited.

There was a general sense that a central repository outlining all the services, programmes and funds available for start-ups / entrepreneurships would be of great benefit to businesses and entrepreneurs. One of the delegates mentioned some body (Equal Basis???) - might be some government study undertaken which proposed just that. Unfortunately, I didn't get to speak to the individual who brought that up.

Language (foreign) was a hot topic. Sean (EI) stressed that we must learn foreign languages: it's not that we all need to learn several languages but as a nation looking to protect and build our economic capacity we must have language skills that we can draw on to build an international footprint. We should not abuse our privilege of mother tongue English and not learn any other language. Our educational policy makers should be insisting and providing more resources at 1st and 2nd level to the study of foreign languages.

I wonder how many schools around the country are teaching Chinese? To digress and reflect back on Professor Autio's comment during the week at Nova UCD on "How to Build and Sustain Momentum for Rapid International Growth ", China's urbanization rate is 44% and expected to go up to 70% in the next 15-20 years. That's the equivalent of 300m-350m people moving from the country to the city. That in turn means a building programme to deliver the infrastructural equivalent of the US in 15-20 years. And, there will be a demand for new and environmentally friendly building materials and methods. As a small economy we need to participate in that opportunity. Let's start learning Chinese (or, at least our children).

Suzanne Kelly, Tax Barrister spoke on opportunities for women to emerge from the economic shadows and exert a powerful influence on the new way of life. Suzanne chastised us for not taking responsibility for our financial affairs: we consequently shut ourselves out of positions of power and influence.

"Recession is going to change a lifestyle borrowed from US sitcoms".

"It's only 35 years since women had to leave the workforce (on marriage)". Change happens.

"The era of the Corporate Man with feet of clay is over"

Professor Patricia Casey (UCD School of Psychiatry) pulled no punches: women are going to be adversely effected by the recession - directly or indirectly. We have more psychiatrists per head of population than anywhere else in Europe. However, currently, we onl;y have 5 beds nationally to cope with eating disorders: what a shocking statistic.
But, Irish women are good social networkers: we need to use community networks to provide each other with

So, girls the good fight is not over. We need to lobby, join political parties, create a female bank (!!!). Go girls.

For those who don't know (including me until today) European Union House is open to the public. Just walk in.