Congratulations to Offaly students Danielle Fogarty from the Sacred Heart School, Tullamore, Chloe Usher from Oaklands Community College, Edenderry and Tom Halligan, Aaron Kenny, Adam Delaney and Ethan Kelly from Gallen Community School, Ferbane who represented our county brilliantly in the Student Enterprise National Final held in Mullingar on 9 May.

There were 81 student businesses in contention across three main categories for the Final in what is Ireland’s largest entrepreneurship programme for second level students.  The initiative, funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country, saw 28,000 students from almost 500 secondary schools across the country take part.

The National Final students, who competed across three categories, Junior, Intermediate and Senior, were in attendance on the day exhibiting their businesses which were judged by a team of national businesses experts, mentors and representatives from enterprise agencies.  Each student enterprise was challenged with creating, setting up and running their own business, which must show sales of their service or product. 

Peter Burke, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, who took part in the ceremony, congratulated the students “Congratulations to everyone who made it to today’s National Finals. With over 28,000 students taking part in this year’s programme, it is a huge achievement to make it to the Finals and shows a real flair for entrepreneurship. Some amazing businesses and entrepreneurs have come from this programme – the majority did not win any prizes but are still running successful businesses today. So, to those of you who won something today, a huge congratulations, but most importantly, to you all, this is the first step on the path, you are the entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future and everyone here today is excited to see what you do next.”    

Michael Nevin, chair of the Local Enterprise Office’s Enterprise Education Committee said; “Year on year the Student Enterprise Programme continues to showcase the very best of Irish ingenuity and entrepreneurship amongst our secondary school students. This year produced a varied selection of businesses, from agricultural products and homemade gifts to pet apps and seaweed harvesting and some amazing winners across the board We see every year that the National Finals are not an end point for our student entrepreneurs, but a stepping stone on the next stage of their entrepreneurial journey. From our class of 23/24 we hope to see some of our next great wave of Irish business leaders and global entrepreneurs emerge.”

Finnegan Fabrication’s “High Lift” was the winner of the Student Enterprise of the Year winning the senior category.

The business, set up by Séan Finnegan, a student of St. Patrick’s Classical School in Navan, creates portable cranes that can be fitted to the interior of commercial vans to help those in construction and similar industries to lift heavy materials in and out. 

The Intermediate Award went to Esker Timber Creations from Presentation College Athenry in Galway.  The business, set up by student Cormac Monaghan, manufactures unique wooden products from repurposed pallet wood.

In the Junior category the award went to Carry Camán.  The business, set up by Marguerite Herlihy, Seána Walsh, Clodagh Buckley and Lucy Matassa from Presentation Secondary School Castleisland in Kerry, is a high-visability hurley and sliotar holder.  It enables users to easily carry their hurling equipment and is also highly visible for those who may walk or cycle to training and matches.