7 of the more than 50 entrants countywide in this year’s Rural Biz competition were presented with their prizes at the awards night in Killarney this week. The competition organised by South Kerry Development Partnership in conjunction with NEKD aims to encourage people with new business ideas to come forward and hopefully progress onto setting up new businesses in the county. The competition and prizes is supported by the RDP (LEADER) project as well as a range of sponsors including Kerry County Enterprise Board, Dan Tim O’Sullivan, Lee Strand, McCarthy Insurances, Teagasc and Radio Kerry. More than €17,500 in prizes and equipment grants was presented to the prize winners at the ceremony.
The overall winner of the innovation award of €5,000 sponsored by KECB was Lactain Spring from Ballyrameen, Castlemaine with his idea Quick Clean Water Trough. This product enables fresh clean water to be available for cattle at each grazing thus helping to stop the spread of water borne diseases.
The first prize in the SDKP section went to Dominic Lyne from Valentia with his idea Westcoast 4×4 that adapts vehicles to cater for drivers with special requirements. The second prize in the region went to Paul O’Connell with his Safe Jack idea for tractors to enable farmers change wheels on vehicles safely while the Gaeltacht region prize went to John Goggin for his new tours business idea.
In North Kerry, the first prize went to Eileen McClure of Kitchen Incubators in Farranfore while the second prize went to Katie Hassett with her business idea Championship Wellies while their Gaeltacht area prize went to Muireann Nic Fiolla Ruadh from the Dingle Cookery School.
Speaking at the event SKDP CEO Noel Spillane praised all of those who took part in the competition and highlighted the fact that many of the previous prize winners have gone on to establish very successful businesses including Joe Daly in Valentia and the Ring of Kerry Quality Lamb group. He added that SKDP and NEKD as well as the County Enterprise Board would provide every support possible to this year’s entrants to enable them make their business idea a reality.
Brian Lesley of the Farmers Journal, who was master of ceremonies for the evening, said that there needs to be a change of attitude towards failure in Ireland. “So what if you fail, get back up again and be stronger for the failure” was his advice to the audience.
John Foley of NEKD also praised the entrants for their courage in bringing their ideas forward and encouraged all of them, whether they won prizes or not to continue to develop their ideas.
Last year’s Rural Biz winner Tony McCarthy also addressed the audience on his progress to get his invention Mac Attach into production and he is due to meet with a potential business partner from Germany later in this week.
