Profiled below are the eight entrepreneurs short-listed for the emerging entrepreneur category in this year's Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

From a range of sectors, they represent a cross-section of the new companies emerging in recent years.

Four of the companies are from Dublin and the others are form Louth, Kilkenny, Antrim and Cork.

The emerging entrepreneur category is designed to recognise younger companies with strong growth potential and innovative abilities. Nominees from the other categories, the industry and international entrepreneurs, will be profiled over the coming two Mondays in The Irish Times and will also be featured in special RTÉ programmes later in the year.

The contestants have been shortlisted from more than 140 nominations received by the programme's judging panel, which is chaired by Mr Denis Boreen.

The contest is in its seventh year and the winners will be announced at an awards banquet on September 23rd.

There will be a winner from each category and one "entrepreneur of the year" who will be one of the category winners. The winners will be picked by a team of 12 judges, all of whom are leading businesspeople, including last year's overall winner, Mr Liam Shananan of Shanahan Engineering.

Other previous winners are: Mr O'Brien; Ms Moya Doherty and Mr John Colgan; Mr Eddie Jordan; Mr Martin McVicar; and Mr Padraig O'Ceidigh.

The competition is sponsored by The Irish Times, RTÉ, Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland, InterTrade Ireland and Shannon Development.