asked the Minister for Finance the percentage of the 77,000 persons currently unemployed whom the Government envisage will be re-employed by 1st September, 1972.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Employment Proposals.
15.
The capital and current budgets and other reflationary measures taken recently have been designed to stimulate economic growth, increase employment and prevent as far as possible the occurrence of redundancies. In my budget speech I pointed out that the additional £35 million released through the current budget would raise the national growth rate by about 1¾ per cent in a full year. There should also be a substantial stimulus to growth as a result of the increase of more than £37 million in expenditure on the public capital programme in 1972-73 as compared with the previous financial year. It is not possible at this stage to quantify the effects of the stimulatory measures on unemployment by the date mentioned by the Deputy but the acceleration in growth envisaged should have favourable implications for employment at an early date.
Surely it should be possible to give some idea regarding what proportion of unemployed people can expect to obtain employment by next September, having regard to all the money that has been injected into the economy? It should be possible to give them some hope about their prospects. It should be possible for the Department to state that a certain number will be able to obtain employment and thereby give some hope to the people. The Department are not giving any such indication.
The Deputy knows that it is not possible to do this.
It should be possible if you are able to make projections for the Third Programme.
We are told that there will be 50,000 new jobs when we enter the EEC. Surely it should be possible for the Government to tell us the number of new jobs that will be available between this and September.
As a result of action taken by the Government in October the live register—it is not always a true measure but it is the best indication with regard to employment—is now down to 7,000 on the corresponding period last year. There were 9,000 more at the end of December. This injection is taking some effect. The current budget, by providing an excess of £35 million in expenditure over revenue and a public capital programme which is pitched at £251 million for 1972-73 as compared with £214 million in 1971-72, should provide further substantial improvements to domestic economic activity and employment.
I suggest that the figure of 50,000 new jobs which has been promised if we enter the EEC is a figment of the imagination.
The Deputy has not got a clue.