Brendan Mooney of the Kainos Group has been named the EY Entrepreneur of the Year.

The CEO of the Belfast-based software firm scooped the top prize at an award ceremony in Dublin’s City West Hotel.

Paul Quigley and Andrew Mullaney of NewsWhip picked up the award for best emerging entrepreneur.

Their Dublin-based technology group, which was founded in 2011, tracks trending online stories for media clients such as MTV, Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post.

Property veteran Stephen Vernon, chairman of Green Property, secured the industry entrepreneur prize.

Astrophysicist Dr Susan McKenna-Lawlor of Space Technology Ireland, an emeritus professor at Maynooth University, received EY's Special Award for her work in the area of space exploration.

Mr Mooney of the Kainos Group, who also took top honours in the international category, will now go on to take part in the World Entrepreneur Of The Year competition in Monte Carlo in June 2017.

He told Newstalk he was delighted his company had been recognised: 

The other finalists were:

EMERGING CATEGORY

Kitman Labs – Stephen Smith

Oneview Healthcare PLC – Mark McCloskey

Tiger Stores – Niall Stringer and Gillian Maxwell

Freshly Chopped Limited – Brian Lee

Beats Medical – Ciara Clancy

Q1 Scientific – Louise Grubb

Plotbox – Leona and Sean McAllister

INDUSTRY CATEGORY

3fivetwo Group – Dr Suresh Tharma and Mr Ashok Songra

JMW Farms – Jim Wright

Leckey – James Leckey

M&M Contractors – Gareth Loye

Codd Mushrooms – Leslie Codd

TPI Group – Colin Culliton

Uform – Eamon Donnelly

INTERNATIONAL CATEGORY

Athlone Extrusions – James McGee

MobileWebAdz – Kieran O’Keeffe

3D4Medical – John Moore

Abbey Machinery – Clodagh Cavanagh

Prepaid Financial Services and eCOMM Merchant Solutions – Noel Moran

The Healy Group – Maurice Healy

iCabbi – Gavan Walsh