asked the Taoiseach the number of meetings of the Central Review Committee which have discussed progress on the employment targets in the Programme for National Recovery; and the areas in which progress has not, to date, lived up to expectations.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Employment Targets.
3.
The Central Review Committee have met on 12 occasions to date and they reviewed the progress in achieving the employment targets at virtually all of those meetings.
As I indicated to the House on 25 January 1989, in reply to a question from Deputy De Rossa, two of the meetings — on 26 October and 30 November 1988 — dealt entirely with a review of progress on job creation. The committee published a report on 10 December 1988, and copies of the report were made available to the Oireachtas Library. The committee's report shows that new jobs are being provided in full accordance with the targets set by the Programme for National Recovery.
While we are all behind the success of the Programme for National Recovery, will the Taoiseach agree that we are deceiving ourselves to suggest that we have a success on our hands in creating 25,000 jobs when our own public statistics show that the manufacturing industry has lost 5,000 jobs since the beginning of the plan? Jobs in the construction industry have been reduced by 10 per cent since the beginning of the plan. Will he, therefore, agree that there is need for a much more realistic assessment of success in the area of jobs than the contents of the report to which the Taoiseach referred?
I am not accepting out of hand the figures quoted by the Deputy. The Programme for National Recovery dealt with the creation of new jobs and did not advert to redundancies or job losses. Apart from that I agree that progress on the whole job creation front needs to be expedited and intensified. I have said this on a number of occasions and acknowledged the fact that there is an urgent need to create many more jobs if we are to keep pace with the increase in the workforce and make any inroads into unemployment and emigration. The Programme for National Recovery is showing considerable results this year and there is a general acknowledgement in business and commercial circles that there is a pick-up in a number of areas, including the construction industry. In addition, we will very shortly bring forward a national development plan, the vehicle which we will use to draw down the increase in Structural Funds over the next five years. That will be mainly an investment plan and we can, with a great deal of justification, expect increases in employment both in the implementation of the plan and in the spin-off of economic activity which will follow from the investment envisaged in the plan.
Will the Taoiseach request that the review committee, chaired by the Secretary of his own Department, will for their next review concentrate on net employment? Will he agree that the national plan should be judged against the targets for net employment because until there is a net increase we are only codding ourselves by producing figures that do not reflect the true position?
The point is that if you did not have the creation of new jobs the net position would be much worse. In fact, the Minister for Labour told me that already this year the figure for redundancies is very considerably down, which is another encouraging sign. I will certainly ask the committee to bring forward some information regarding the net position.
Does the Taoiseach concur with the view expressed by some members of the Government — particularly by the Minister for Industry and Commerce — that even if these targets are achieved in the Programme for National Recovery and even if the redundancy figures are down this year, it will have only a minimal impact, if any, on the unemployment figures?
I would not be that pessimistic. As I said, in 1989 we will start on the implementation of the national development plan which is related to the increase in Structural Funds.