The Irish Internet Association and IBI Corporate Finance have been running a laudable series called The Money Trail to which they have invited a range of leading venture capitalists, industry analysts, Government agency representatives and entrepreneurs to discuss dot.com funding.

Last week it was the turn of Colm O Duibhir of Enterprise Ireland, David Dalton, CEO of dot.com incubator Hot Origin, Neill Hughes of Denis O'Brien's Island Investments, and Sean Melly, former Worldcom Ireland CEO, now head of E-tel and Powerscourt Investments. The news was not good.

Mssrs Hughes and Mr Melly in particular spoke of the extreme difficulties of raising funds, especially for any B2C (business to consumer) venture. Mr Melly pointed to the market's continuing bitterness towards one-time high-fliers like UK auction site QXL, now trading at a shocking 5 per cent of its value at its height.

Mr Melly drew wry laughter with his pointed observation: "Everyone thinks they are an entrepreneur and that's not something everyone should think they should be." Oh, surely he didn't mean all those potential dot.com entrepreneurs stuffing the room and hanging on his words?