Slovak in Ireland, magazine for Slovak community living in Ireland

The main topic of the June edition is start-up business in Ireland. We explain how organizations like Enterprise Ireland, City or County Enterprise Board, IDA (Irish Development Authority Ireland), Irish Small and Medium Enterprise (ISME) can help with starting up a business. These organizations give advisory and fi nancial support for people living in Ireland. If Slovaks are interested in starting a business in Ireland there are a number of issues to consider. We discussed these issues with Brian O`Kane. If a person is unemployed he/she may be eligible for the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance Scheme. We discuss the basic rules and regulations when starting up a business and the diff erent methods e.g. as a Sole Trader, as a Partnership or as a Limited Company. 

The Denise Gara Story is about her family and how they came to live in Ireland. They came to Ireland in 2004. It wasn’t easy for them to live in a diff erent country. They were employed for two years and later on they started their own business - Gara’s Forge Art Craft Handmade Wrought Iron. Denise is working as a designer and her husband is a Craft Smith (Forgeman). They did lots of craft works and they displayed their work at many exhibitions. There is one work in Malahide. Its La Spa Therapy and Jozef O”Gara made beautifull railing at the entrance of La Spa Therapy. Business at this time isn’t easy but they believe all will be ok.

LARKIN UNEMPLOYED CENTRE

The Centre is part of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions national network of 38 centres. The role of the Centre is multifaceted and it off ers various community based services such as welfare rights information, advocacy, a Job Club and also information and support on self-employment.

SLOVAKS AND CZECHS BUSINESSMAN IN IRELAND

There are few Slovaks and Czechs running their own businesses in Ireland. Lubo Marton runs a shop with Slovak food in Limerick. Radek Strnad has CzechoSlovak Shop in Dublin. Miloš Šuran and Ivka Škopová came to Ireland in 2006 and they used to run a pub in Tuam. Nowadays, they distribute Slovak and Czech alcoholic beverages throughout Ireland. Brothers Polaks come from Banska Bystrica. They run a Tea Garden on Ormond Quay. Irish love to go there because of the relax atmosphere. It’s worth a visit. Vaclav Novotny and Igor Mensik started a business only 2 months ago. They run a pub Pifko where they serve Czech and Slovak beer and nice food.

SLOVAK ONLINE LTD.

Marek Kapicak and Milan Lukac has been operating on Irish market since December 2007. They are the strongest, fastest growing and well established company importing and distributing mainly Slovak products in Ireland. Parallel part of the business is Parcel Delivery Service to Slovakia which gained over 1000 customers only in 6 months. They also run the most relevant media dedicated to Slovak and Czech community in Ireland. Their websites www.irsko.exil. sk, www.zoznam.ie have daily readership over 3000 people. As a part of their media division they publish the only monthly for Slovaks and Czechs in Ireland Slovak in Ireland. They plan to stabilize all their divisions , keep the biggest market share and grow further.

130 SLOVAK STUDENT ON EDUCATION STAY IN IRISH SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES

This project was funded by Slovak Government for students aged 16-19 from underprivileged families. 130 students were living in Irish families at the west coast of Ireland and they studied at Irish schools. It was great experience for them. They completed their year of study at the end of May and fl ew back to Slovakia from Shannon Airport. Bernie Carroll said about the students:”The students took some time to adapt to their new school system. There were few problems with Slovak students like: speaking their own language, not integrating with Irish students and also a lot of the students were under the impression they would be staying in cities or in towns. Three students didn’t complete a year study. In general schools have given students great praise and said they were great ambassadors for their country. Obviously with such a number of students we had a few that made life diffi cult for host families, coordinators and schools as they just did not want to abide by the rules and felt they were too strict. Overall the program this year was a great success.”