"HELLO, my name is Damien, and I'm a recovering techwreck."

For five long years after the dotcom crash, technology entrepreneurs in Ireland hid in the shadows and were told to sober up.

The story became property, property, property.

But since the Cork-born Silicon Valley maven Tim O'Reilly coined the phrase Web 2.0 and bought the sector a case of virtual bubbly - hair of the dog after the hangover of the bubble - it was swiftly followed by phenomena like YouTube and MySpace attracting billions in serious money.

Now things have changed.

Tech is back. And it's ready to party.

Last weekend, at the lakeside location of the Research & Innovation Centre in Carriganore, Waterford, a gathering of 80 of Ireland's digerati - academics, Second Life fashion designers, bloggersturned-businessmen, podcasters for hire - thrashed out where things might go from here.

The critical factor, as ever, is matching talent with capital. But as the property market cools, investors are looking back towards tech start-ups in hope of getting a big return. With the extension of the Business Expansion Scheme and government investment in venture capital funds, will "angel" investors soon follow?

The gathering, an informal conference using the worldwide tech franchise known as 'BarCamp', is part social network, part pitching festival and part support group for those addicted to dreams of web success and in search of a 12-step programme to get there. The vibe is one where everyone is equal and encouraged not just to listen but to present.

The best-attended talk on the day was a panel discussion on the funding processes for start-ups. The panel included venture capital investors, people with self-financed success stories and those with the scars of investment lessons learned the hard way.

Brian Caulfield of Trinity Venture Capital was quite positive about the current state of venture funding in Ireland.

"In the past year-and-ahalf there's been a resurgence in investment. It is now reaching a stable level and the sizes of investments have gone up Europe-wide."

Caulfield looks for three things before investing. "First is the market opportunity, second is the management team and a far-off third is the technology used to exploit the market opportunity."

The technology isn't as important as the management team because the right people will overcome any technological restrictions they encounter, he says.

Another panellist, Tom Doherty of Lecterna, built up two businesses by going the self-finance route. He says it is now easier than ever to start a company. His advice for start-ups is to work with one of the growing number of business incubation centres around the country, designed specifically to help new companies.

Doherty is also upbeat about the future of investment in start-ups and believes that more investors will move into this area as other markets begin to cool.

"In the next two to three years, as the property market slows, which I believe it already is doing, property investors will start looking at start-ups in order to get a greater return on investment."

Doherty does believe, however, that the environment for fostering indigenous companies is still in adequate and, depending on the size of the company and the investment, there are support and investment deficits that need to be addressed.

"There is definitely an expertise and funding gap between enterprise board support and Enterprise Ireland support, " added Doherty.

For his company, Lecterna, he uses funds earned from another one of his companies to help him until he reaches the level where Enterprise Ireland can come in.

One way that Enterprise Ireland helps fledgling companies is by providing feasibility study-type funding where it gives a company half its seed capital back if they spend up to Euro65k. But for early start-ups, the source of their half of the money can come from personal savings or family and friends.

As a company grows, Enterprise Ireland can also provide either research and development grants or employment grants in return for an equity position in the company. With R&D grants, Enterprise Ireland will not exceed what other investors are putting in.

Venture capital firms on this side of the Atlantic generally do not like to do early-stage funding as the overheads of managing many small investments are too high. As a result, investments from the larger VC firms are typically Euro1m or more. Those start-ups that don't need large investments like these have to turn to angel investors - or they might have to turn to family and friends.

Angel investors are still rare in Ireland. An angel investor or 'business angel' is a wealthy individual who invests in a company in exchange for shares in the company.

Caulfield agrees with the assertion that there are gaps at certain stages and that it is tough to raise money depending how far along the start-up phase your company is.

"We don't have a business angel culture compared to the US for early-stage investment but the changes in the Business Expansion Scheme could plug this gap."

The government is filling some of the funding gaps and Enterprise Ireland recently announced that it would provide a fund of Euro175m to invest in venture capital.

Brian Caulfield says this investment will make EI a cornerstone investor in VC funds and will get the same terms and conditions as an investor in any other scheme, such as a pension fund.

Some in the tech industry think this money should be invested differently. Joe Drumgoole from start-up PutPlace believes that the funding, while welcome, doesn't appear to help smaller start-ups.

"The problem with the EI money is that are no constraints and there is no control over where the money goes, nor is there any hope of it going where it is most needed - into early stage start-ups."

Drumgoole added: "If you took Euro75m of that Euro175m and started to invest it directly in Irish start-ups, you could fund 50 world-class start-ups each with Euro1.5m of seed capital."

Conor O'Neill from tech start-up LouderVoice, which helps promote website reviews, thinks the money should be spread out even further than Drumgoole suggests.

"The number of technology businesses being set up by those in their early to mid-20s is worryingly low.

We need some way of encouraging them to have a go without feeling they'll lose the shirt off their back if it fails. Rather than VCs funding maybe 50 companies at Euro3m-Euro6m each, EI could fund over 800 ventures doing this. Maybe one of those 800 becomes the next YouTube or eBay."