It’s great to see that The Apprentice Ireland Blog is, for now at least, ranked number one by Google for the search term “The Apprentice Ireland”.

We’re aiming to be the number one website for all Apprentice Ireland related news and gossip and we need your help to ensure that the site remains fresh, relevant and up to date (and number one in the Google search rankings).

If you have any news or titbits about the show that you want to share with us, just drop us a line via the contact form and we’ll make sure the information is posted on to the site without delay.

You can also visit our new Apprentice Ireland Forum and join in the chat about the new Irish series and also the UK & US Apprentice shows.

Whatever it is you want to know about The Apprentice Ireland, we intend to be the best source around.

Winning contestant, Lee McQueen, was due to start work yesterday for the tycoon but was a no-show.

A source at the show said: “This will make Sir Alan really cross because he hates being let down. Lee was really keen to start work but he felt he wasn’t up for it and had to stay at home.”

For his first day, he was supposed to help develop digital display advertising screen at Sugar’s holding company, Amshold which is located in Essex.

A company spokesman said: “Lee is at home with a virus. He’ll be starting work as soon as he is feeling better.”

This will leave Lee in a new job nightmare by already being on a bad footing with the boss.

Except in this case his boss is the notoriously short-tempered and extremely rich Alan Sugar.

Lee beat 15 other contestants in the popular BBC show to land the €130,000-a-year dream job with tycoon, Alan Sugar.

In an interview with the BBC website McQueen even broached the subject of his first day.

When asked if he was nervous about his first day working for the intimidating entrepreneur he said: “I’m not nervous, I’m confident. I’m really pleased that the job I will be doing is testing the skills that I learnt on The Apprentice, and teaching me new skills based around how to set up a business and how to run an organisation, so I’m more excited than nervous.”

The show ran over 12 weeks and received over 20,000 applications so Lee has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders.

He was most notable in the show for having lied on his CV saying that he attended college for two years, when in reality he had left after only attending for just over four months.

This led to calls for Sugar to fire him but the boss stuck to his guns and hired the fellow Tottenham Hotspurs fan.

Lee used to work as recruitment sales manager making the choice of lying on his CV even more unfortunate.

Apparently, even British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown was shocked by the choice of Lee as ‘The Apprentice’ and urged people not to lie on their CV as the truth “always comes out anyway.”

Sugar may now be wishing he chose Dublin entrepreneur Jennifer Maguire (27) who was eliminated near the end.

In a recent interview she said that Sugar couldn’t handle fiery Irish women and she believed that may have contributed to her being fired from the hit television show.

The entrepreneur and self-made multi-millionaire has become known as the boardroom chairman in BBC reality TV show The Apprentice.

Amstrad was sold to BSkyB in 2007 and the 61-year-old will now continue to be involved with his numerous other business interests.

Sir Alan said it was now the “right time” for him to step down.

His other businesses include Amshold, Amsprop, Amsair and Viglen computers.

Property tycoon

“The past 40 years have seen Amstrad grow from a start-up business to the success story that it is today, which is credit to the talented and loyal team here.”

“This is a move that has been planned for a while and it’s the right time for me to step down from my role at Amstrad,” he said.

Sir Alan has achieved a net worth of £830m, but most of his wealth now comes from his property portfolio, rather than business ventures.

He left school at the age of 16 and founded Amstrad at the age of 21.

The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1980, then sold to BSkyB in July, in a deal worth £125m that earned him a £34.5m windfall.

If you applied to take part in The Apprentice Ireland, we want to hear your views (good or bad) on how the whole process was managed.

If you made it through to the 2nd stage auditions, let us know what questions you were asked and what practical things you had to do.

We’re hoping the forum will generate topical and humorous discussion about the new series of The Apprentice show and we’re relying on all our visitors to join in the chat and make it a success.

McQueen, from Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, said he had to take “a deep breath” when the tycoon told him “you’re hired” in the hit BBC show.

The 30-year-old beat three other hopefuls to land a £100,000 job alongside Sir Alan.

He said he would buy his girlfriend new shoes with his first pay cheque.

McQueen will begin work as Sir Alan’s new apprentice on 1 July 2008.

As well as planning to lease a new Porsche, he also said he wanted to help his mother get central heating in her flat.

“It’s a terrible moment when you’ve got two great people and I have to make my mind up,” said Sir Alan, who chose McQueen over runner-up and favourite Claire Young.

He called McQueen “a team player”, adding that “he always seemed to give his all”.

“He delivered every single time I asked him to do something,” the Amstrad founder said.

In the final episode of the series, McQueen was pitched against fellow hopefuls Young, Alex Wotherspoon and Helene Speight in a task to create a men’s fragrance.

But Wotherspoon and Speight’s efforts were not good enough for Sir Alan, who called McQueen and Young (a retail buyer nicknamed The Rottweiler) back for one final showdown.

Sir Alan told the pair: “Claire, you have some great attributes and Lee, you’re very convincing. You are very, very, very convincing. I’ve concluded… Lee, you’re hired.”

“When I heard those words ‘you’re hired’ it took a couple of seconds to sink in,” McQueen said.

He added: “I’m a big softie and when we learnt we were the final two it was very emotional.”

McQueen - who earned £78,000 last year - has been asked by Sir Alan to launch a digital advertising product which will come under one of the tycoon’s “portfolio of companies”.

He said he was “very ashamed” to have been caught lying on his CV in an episode when he was also hauled over the coals for his poor spelling.

“It lost me some of my integrity,” he said.

“I got a good grilling and I deserved it, and I learned from my mistake. It won’t happen again.”

The plan for Simon after winning The Apprentice was to train as a chartered surveyor whilst working on a hotel and golfing development near Stansted Airport.

Simon still works for the Estates Management Team of Amsprop, the real estate division of Sir Alan Sugar’s companies.

Highly competitive, proud and ambitious, Simon can speak six different languages and says he achieves his best work under pressure.

Before going on The Apprentice, Simon Ambrose, whose father is a multi-millionaire diamond dealer and member of the London Diamond Bourse, had developed a number of internet based business ideas, including selling sound and lighting equipment. His first job was assisting in a discount jewellery shop where he was trained to differentiate between real and fake diamonds by judging their weight in carats – a skill he still has.

At university Simon tried his has hand at acting and even performed at the famous Cambridge Footlights. He enjoys yachting, karate and kite boarding.

She was born in Hull, East Yorkshire and from a young age was determined to create success in her life. She set herself the target to own her first property by the age of 21 and undertook a number of part time roles to earn money to make this dream a reality. When she was 18, she cold called Hull’s biggest telecommunications company to request a managerial post. She was offered an admin position in the IT department which she saw as a great opportunity to ‘get her foot in the door’ and learn. She rapidly progressed through the ranks, and set herself the goal of becoming an IT Network Analyst. She self funded and taught herself IT in her spare time until she became a qualified MCP and got the role of Network Analyst.

In 2000, Michelle relocated to Stoke on Trent to further her career and in 2001 she was headhunted by a FTSE 250 company in London who was impressed with her Programme Management skills and saw her as the ideal candidate to manage the project of relocating their business overseas. From there, Michelle recognised the potential of Offshore work and established herself as a self-employed consultant delivering exactly that.

In a bid to find a successful mentor, Michelle entered BBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ in 2005 where she was the youngest candidate. She was determined to win and fulfilled her goal, becoming Sir Alan Sugar’s apprentice. After working alongside him for 1 year, Michelle left to re-establish her own consultancy, Michelle Dewberry Ltd (MDL).

Today, alongside running MDL, Michelle is an active supporter of various business initiatives up and down the country and undertakes a lot of charity work. She is also always on the look out for new business ventures to be involved in. She believes in making the most of life and each year sets herself a significant challenge. After being a spectator of the 2006 London Marathon, Michelle vowed to herself that she would run the following year, despite having no previous distance running experience and a poor level of fitness. True to her word, Michelle enrolled alone and completed the 2007 London Marathon and did so in an amazing 4 hours 33 minutes (just 10 minutes after Gordon Ramsey and beating Matt Dawson!), raising funds for the NSPCC and Wellchild charities.

She lives by her mantra, “if you believe in yourself, anything is possible”. Her autobiography, “Anything is Possible” was released in March 2007.

After recording for the series ended in November 2004, Campbell was catapulted into a world very different from his previous job at London Underground.

However, unlike the others in the show who were, understandably, attempting to make the most of their fifteen minutes of fame. Campbell was put straight to work on a new project for Sugar.

“There were no parties or film premiers for me,” says Campbell. “I was kept away from all of that and had to get on with business.”

Prior to working for Amstrad, Campbell worked on the Tube, where he fought his way into a management position. However, he has found that the publicly run transport service is a world away from a global electronics company.

Viewers of the show will remember Tim as being a good-natured and non-aggressive contestant. It raised the question whether he was hard-nosed enough to succeed in business – particularly at Amstrad. But Campbell doesn’t agree with this portrayal and suggests that he was a victim of the cutting room. “I am tougher than that, I am a very resilient person,” he says.

“What I have learned about business is that it is another language. It is not this hard intimidating place where only certain people can succeed. Business is about making money – the bottom line.”

And despite witnessing a dozen fellow contestants on ‘The Apprentice’ being ‘fired’ Campbell is not a concerned that he will be hit by the same fate.

“I have fear of failure, of personal failure, but being fired is not big thing for me,” he asserts. “It may sound big headed but I’m confident that I can adapt myself to any environment.

“I navigated my way through the London Underground and I was one of the youngest people ever to become a manager there. But I have a set of transferable skills that can be adapted to any environment.

“If I make a mistake I will hold my hands up and accept responsibility. But I don’t see me getting fired in the foreseeable future.”

Backed by his experiences to date, Campbell has encouraging words for entrepreneurs about what is needed to get ahead in the world of business.

“I believe that anybody can be in business,” he says. “Some people think qualifications get you ahead or think you have to talk in a certain – way but those are just barriers. You just need the will to succeed.”

Selling on the streets from the age of six, be it fruit, flowers, newspapers, Christmas decorations, football colours, or programs, was a means of putting food on the table for Bill and his family. He finished school at thirteen to go on the street full-time.

In 1956 Bill got a job as a messenger boy for a pound a week at Waldens Ford Dealer in Dublin. Through hard work and unrelenting determination, Bill was appointed director general of the company in 1965 and went on to set up the Fairlane Motor Company, which became the biggest Ford dealership in Ireland.

In 1986 he took over the troubled Renault car distribution franchise from Waterford Crystal. His turnaround of that company into what is now the Glencullen Group is a business success story – the group now has an annual turnover of €350 million.

Bill Cullen is a director of the Irish Youth Foundation and in 1998 was a recipient of the Lord Mayor’s Award for his work with the disadvantaged young people of Dublin. In September 2004 Bill was awarded the inaugural Princess Grace Humanitarian Award.