On account of the minor detail of generally avoiding the Irish Independent’s website, I missed this nugget when I was writing the WhiteLines piece the other day.

Yes, you too can realise your dream if you become redundant.

I have issues with this piece. It consists of three superficial case studies which are supposed to lead you to think that you too can have a magical life when thrown the lifeline of redundancy. But it lacks what I would consider to be essential information for anyone who might be thinking of doing something similar. Take the photographer and the card maker. Setting up as a freelancer requires a certain amount of information regarding tax ramifications, knock on effects on any unemployment related benefits you might be collecting, how to market yourself, what options are available (if any) to help you on your way here. Costs which it would be advisable to look into such as, say, professional indemnity insurance for professional photographers, for example. For the fundraisers, what is their source of income?

There’s none of that. It’s very disappointing because for people to pursue the dream – and get the hell off the dole queues per government quiet desire – they need help in the how. How do I do it. I know, as it happens, someone who took the photography route. He’s happy and it’s working out for him but I also know quite a lot about what went into getting him there and it’s not just as simple as “fortunately, I had a load of photography gear”. That’s a vacuous statement.

It’s something I am thinking a lot about at the moment if only because I think that there are some benefits to self employment. However, you need to pick your self employment industry carefully and it’s telling that in our Celtic Silicon Island phase, we didn’t get that many spin offs by people setting up on their own after a period in one of the bigger companies. Tellingly, it’s one of the key differences between the culture in Silicon Island and Silicon Valley. Part of that is that…setting up on your own in Ireland can be very difficult. The support isn’t necessarily there and where it is, there are hoops and hoops which have to be jumped through. Doesn’t help that a lot of the infrastructure just isn’t there, and doesn’t look like it’s coming either.

There is some useful advice on the citizen’s information site which is an extremely good place to start. Depending on your business and academic background, Dublin City University has an incubation centre called Invent which I think is a fantastic idea and for what it’s worth, they have what looks to be an interesting new program between themselves and Dundalk Institute of Technology for unemployed graduates of both centres.

Our politicians pay a lot of lipservice to how small and medium enterprises can have an impact on our exports and employment figures. They will be critical in the so-called knowledge economy. But I am not sure that we have the structures in place to support people when they are at the pursue the dream level and vacuous articles such as appeared in last Wednesday’s Irish Independent are of no practical assistance.

How do we change that? Well, if the Indo’s website was doing its job properly, it would have included the link to Citizen’s Information which I provided above. Here too is a link to relevant information on the Revenue Commissioner’s Website. And as far as pension considerations are concerned, here is a good place to start.

I may wind up writing more on this subject later.