I am glad of the opportunity to speak about the events of yesterday and about economic matters. Listening to other speakers in the last two hours or so, I gather that people are generally reflecting on what happened throughout yesterday in a more purposeful way than the way in which the debate was conducted yesterday during the course of bitter exchanges. I take on board the comments made by Deputies Durkan and Gay Mitchell. I am almost 15 years here and I have rarely seen a day as divisive as yesterday. I take tha point of Deputy Gay Mitchell that perhaps Dáil reform would be a help in that area. In the words of Deputy McDaid last night, it was a very disappointing occasion when his proposed appointment was marred by totally unfounded allegations against him by some Members of the House. I take Deputy Mitchell's point with regard to the Provisional IRA. However, hard things were said yesterday about Deputy McDaid and they do not stand up. The allegations were offensive to Deputy McDaid as an individual apart from his position as a proposed holder of the office of Minister for Defence. It was wrong to accuse the man straightforwardly without innuendo as being a Provo fellow traveller.
The second allegation that I found totally offensive was that if Deputy McDaid was Minister for Defence this would lead to an increase in the number of leaks from the Defence Forces to the Provisional IRA. Both of those remarks added nothing to the debate but did a lot of damage to the name of the colleague of mine, a colleague of us all because he is a Member of the House. In my 15 years here I have always tended to look to the roof or to the wall rather than listen to the mud slinging that is often part of an ill-tempered debate but which then dies down. However, yesterday there was a concerted attempt against Deputy McDaid. It must be left to the historians to analyse what went on here yesterday, but as far as I could see it seemed to be a case of vieing to see who could say the most vicious thing about the Deputy.
Because Deputy McDaid took part in the aftermath of a court case, because he knew the individual concerned, knew something about him and thought he was doing right on behalf of a constituent, he was attacked by the Opposition parties; but many people in this House have done the same in other cases. If we are to be honest it would be hard for any of us here to stand up and say anything in this House if we were to go back and check all of the things we did. Most Members of this House at one time or another speak to members of prison committees and get letters from constituents who are prisoners or from the parents of prisoners, sometimes Republican prisoners and other times people with ordinary criminal records. These things have to be handled with care and people have to check what the position is. Over the years I have heard members of the Oireachtas from all sides of the House making speeches against the security forces, the Garda, believing themselves to be right at the time. Susequently, if they are found to be wrong they are normally gracious enough to admit that.
I believe that Deputy McDaid probably made the right decision last night in view of what happened. It is not an easy thing to do, when nominated for any position, to withdraw as he did. His words will stand out among all the records in this House because they were unique. He said last night that in view of attacks made on him and to avoid the slightest suspicion, however unwarranted, attaching to the Minister for Defence and in the broader national interest he was requesting the Taoiseach to withdraw his nomination as a member of the Government. That was never done in this House before, and it was not an easy thing to do. Whatever comments and remarks are made about Deputy James McDaid, that should be remembered to his credit.
I agree with Deputy Gay Mitchell who was gracious enough to say that Deputy McDaid should be wished well in this House, and I think the matter should rest there. Very harsh remarks which were unfounded were made by some members of the Opposition. Their colleagues have now pulled back from them and it would be helpful if we saw a pulling back from them on all sides today before the end of the debate. It will not change who the next Minister for Defence will be. We have gone beyond that since last night. But pulling back will restore the integrity of a decent, honourable, hardworking, professional doctor and Deputy in this House.
In the last few months there has been a big increase in the number of personalised attacks on the characters of Members of this House. It cannot go unnoticed that yesterday, within hours of a relatively unknown backbencher's name being mentioned as Minister for Defence, extensive files were out. One can only ask if there were other files had anyone else been picked. That was remarkable and something I have never seen before in all my years in this House.
I think the Opposition made some good points today. They made some good points about employment, emigration, about public finances, about the Government working and about its credibility. They were all legitimate points made by the Opposition. That is what we would be doing if things were the other way around. It is what I did between 1982 and 1987 when I was on the benches occupied by Deputies Mitchell and Durcan. However, I do not think that the absolutely personal character assassinations that have been going on in this House in recent weeks do anything for the House. I would have much in common with Deputy Gay Mitchell. I admire the work he does on committees in this House. If we cannot debate policy and discuss our party differences in the third person then we are not much good to the electorate. If we carried the kind of friction and bitterness and absolute hate that was around this House last night out to the public at large we would not achieve much for the electorate, whether they are supporters of Government or of Opposition. The period from mid October until now has not been very long in Dáil terms. People argue that we had a long summer recess, but I have a feeling that the public may think that we did not have long enough if all we can do is to try to murder each other off by levelling abuse and counter abuse at each other. I hope we can now stop that on all sides and do the job that I understood we were elected to do in 1977 and which has still to be done.
Tackling unemployment remains the number one priority of this Government. The most effective role which the Government can play is in the creation of the optimum conditions for attracting and stimulating investment to enable employment to grow. Self-sustaining, viable jobs are the only real answer to the twin problems of unemployment and emigration.
Rising unemployment is not unique to Ireland: it is part of a global trend. Over the last year unemployment has risen by over two million in the USA while countries as far apart as Australia, Canada, Finland and the UK have all witnessed similar percentage increases in unemployment to that recorded here. It should be borne in mind that many of these countries are not experiencing the same growth in the labour force or the phenomenon of returning emigrants as Ireland. It cannot be denied that the recent rise in unemployment has been largely caused by the global recession and the consequent cessation of emigration.
As I have already pointed out, the Irish economy has performed very well over the past four years and, despite the protracted worldwise recession, is continuing to do so. All the evidence suggests that employment levels are holding steady and should, in fact, record a slight increase on last year. The latest ESRI Medium-Term Review predicts an annual average growth of 3.7 per cent in GNP up to 1996. Employment is expected to grow by 50,000 over the period — by 75,000 in non-agricultural sectors.
The achievement of these goals required and continues to require the co-operation of all the major economic and social interests in society. For that reason we must avoid the temptation to resort to short term ad hoc remedies which usually treat the symptom of unemployment instead of the disease which is lack of investment and the resulting lack of jobs. We would do well to remember that much larger and more powerful economies than our own, France for instance, have attempted to follow this path and have been forced to abandon it. It is vital, therefore, that we hold our nerve and not allow ourselves to be panicked into rash action merely because it seems expedient in the short term.
In its Spring Commentary the ESRI stated:
It is very difficult to discover measures which could ameliorate the unemployment problem in the short term without exacerbating it in the longer term.... To increase the budget deficit further in an attempt to combat unemployment arising from international economic trends would be foolhardy and could jeopardise the economic strategy on which sustained employment growth depends
The OECD, in its commentary, agrees:
Persistence with the considerable policy efforts already embarked upon provides the best chance for the continuation of the impressive economic performance achieved over the past three years.
In considering macho-policies I would remind the House that a key ingredient of economic growth and development — and one that cannot be measured in quantitative terms — is business confidence which, in turn, impacts on the economic behaviour of entrepreneurs. The decision to invest or expand is largely influenced by the general perception of the prevailing stability and financial climate.
Commentators too often prefer to see the negative side of economic indicators and, in an atmosphere of doom and gloom, people will react and respond accordingly. This only exacerbates the economic situation. Recently a leading Irish economist noted how, in recent years, the economy responds given the right conditions when business confidence begins to recover, and there is a general perception of economic stability and continued growth. We should remind ourselves that, given the global situation, Ireland is performing well and is proving an attractive location for potential investors. We must all be careful not to discourage investment by over-emphasising the negative aspects.
Having said that, the Government are fully aware of the situation. We are convinced that any remedial action must accord with, and complement, the overall strategy and objectives encompassed by the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, any other action would be counterproductive. As part of their strategy to deal with rising unemployment the Government established the Task Force on employment and the Industrial Policy Review Group to identify and suggest remedies to obstructions to employment creation which might exist.
Unemployment will also be a major issue in the White Paper on Manpower Policy which I have been working on for a number of months. I would not say that this will resolve all the problems overnight but the measures contained in the final draft will be of help to Governments in the decade ahead in identifying where the problems lie and deciding how to overcome some of the obstacles.
Despite the fact that the fundamentals of the economy remain sound, the Government are by no means complacent about the problems which exist, particularly that of unemployment. The number of redundancies notified to my Department last year was 13,292 which was the lowest annual total since 1979. The total number of redundancies notified to the Department in the first nine months this year was 12,471 as compared with a figure of 10,620 for the corresponding period in 1990. This increase of approximately 17 per cent is believed to have arisen through a combination of reasons, namely, global recession, continuing rationalisation, loss of markets and the temporary dislocation of business due to the Gulf crisis.
An analysis of the monthly returns so far in 1991 shows that while the trend in the figures in the early part of the year was upwards, it is now evident that this increasing trend has levelled off somewhat in the more recent months. It is expected that, based on the above returns, the total number of notified redundancies in 1991 could amount to 16,000 to 17,000. Although this would be in excess of 1989 and 1990 totals of 13,395 and 13,292 respectively, it would compare favourably with the annual average figure of 22,400 for the ten year period 1981-1990, inclusive, and would be substantially beneath the figure of 31,290 for the peak year of 1984 in this period.
Although the outlook for 1992 is still uncertain much depends on the recovery in other countries in particular the UK. It is not all gloom however, and the broad picture is for a somewhat better economic climate next year.
The OECD project world output growth of almost 3 per cent in 1992 compared with 1 per cent this year; the EC Commission projects growth of 2.25 per cent for the EC as a whole; significantly from our viewpoint, the Commission projects growth of 2 per cent for the UK, following a decline of the same order this year. Given the strong improvement in our economic fundamentals in the last few years, we are now in a very good position to take advantage of the world upswing in economic activity as soon as it gets under way. The Single European market after 1992 will also bring a substantial increase in intra-EC trade from which we should benefit significantly.
This Government have a lot to be proud of. We have introduced a level of consensus between the social partners from which we should all benefit. Given the comments made in the House this morning, I think everybody is now supportive of this mechanism, regardless of who is in Government. We have overseen a level of inflation which is the envy of Europe and it continues to remain low. Our policies have ensured a balance of payments surplus of record proportions in recent years. Our Exchequer borrowing requirement, at 2.5 per cent, is at a level which would have seemed impossible a few years ago.
The fight against unemployment remains to be won. We must bring to that task the same level of commitment and energy with which we have tackled the other considerable difficulties we faced and successfully overcame. The House can be assured that the Government will spare no effort to bring about the conditions which will ensure that the problem of unemployment, which remains at a high level, will eventually be eliminated.
Let me reiterate my abiding concern for reasoned and reasonable debate. The issues of employment and the state of public finances are the real issues to be tackled in this House. The Government ought not be diverted or deflected from the real job on hand. The task is maintaining and advancing the progress, economic and otherwise, which has been the hallmark of this Government.
