Bernard Allen
Question:7 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the projected growth in manufacturing employment in the next five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Job Creation Policy.
Michael Creed
Question:77 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the specific targets he has set for his Department in terms of job creation and reductions in unemployment.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 77 together.
The creation of employment and the reduction of unemployment are the primary economic policy objectives of the Government. In the Programme for a Partnership Government, the Government set as Ireland's biggest challenge the need to increase the number of sustainable jobs within the economy.
The National Development Plan for the new round of Structural Funds will have employment and job creation as a key determining factor. However, I understand that it will be some time yet before that plan is finalised. Consequently, the Deputies will appreciate that I am not yet in a position to give details of manufacturing employment projections for the next five years in so far as my Department is concerned.
Is the Minister aware that FÁS, an agency operating under his Department, has published projections for manufacturing employment and that these show a growth of only 12,000 over the five year period concerned? Would the Minister not agree that given a projected State investment in the manufacturing sector of £300 million per year, the apparent cost of £150,000 per job appears extremely burdensome, and in view of that would he consider an alternative strategy to relieve the service sector of the huge burdens it bears from the tax code?
The Deputy is injecting a good deal of new matter into this subject.
I am aware of the study to which the Deputy refers. Within the Department at present we are discussing the matters raised by the Deputy with the authors of the study in FÁS.
Can we have a guarantee from the Minister that in examining the issue of manufacturing employment he will take into account the crippling effect of the taxation system on such employment? In particular, will he take into account the figures recently elicited by Deputy Cox from the Minister for Finance that a married employee with four children earning £8,000 per year and living in a local authority house is better off than somebody earning £15,000, almost double that figure? Will the Minister accept that if he does not analyse the employment problem in the context of tax reform he is wasting his time and, more important, our time?
Let us not tax the Minister with matters which are not his responsibility. Taxation is clearly the responsibility of another Minister.
Jobs are the Minister's responsibility.
In response to Deputy McDowell's well-made point, the Govenment is aware of the relationship between taxation and employment and is studying the implications of changes in the tax system and the effect such changes would have on employment creation.
Is that why the Minister's Government brought in an income levy to widen the tax base?
We are having a complete widening of the subject.
Can the Minister indicate when he will be in a position to give the House a projection for additional net employment in the manufacturing sector?
The question put to me related to the specific targets I have set for the Department in terms of job creation. In response to that I said that I could not respond to specific targets.
With respect to the Minister that was not the question. The question referred to the projected growth in manufacturing employment, not targets which the Minister has set for himself.
Let us not engage in argument now. We should have an orderly Question Time.
When the details of the national plan are available, published and agreed they will enable us to indicate the kind of projections to which the Deputy's question refers.
Would the Minister agree that the FÁS study to which I referred shows that less than half of the projected growth in our labour force will find employment in the coming six years? Does that not indicate the need for a radical change in Government policy in relation to employment creation? Can the Minister give some indication of the directions of the change he will introduce?
If the Deputy is asking me to answer, on foot of a supplementary, what a radical change in Government policy might be, the answer is——
The Minister has no idea.
——that I am not in a position to give such an answer.
The Minister has no idea.
Deputy Carey, interjections are not helpful.
If the Deputy wants such an answer I will give it to him chapter and verse but I will not do so in reply to a supplementary.
We will ask Deputy Ferris.
I understood the Minister to say by way of reply that he will be able to give the projected figures for some years forward when the national plan is in place. I would be obliged if he would elaborate on that somewhat to the House. I am not clear what the national plan has to do with growth in manufacturing employment. We will benefit from better roads and so on but I would have thought it is an incidental relationship.
On the contrary, the very thrust of the Culliton report was that these issues were not merely incidental but were central and primary to job maintenance and job creation. Until such time as we have a clear picture as to what the full spend of the £8,000 million plus is likely to be, we cannot give the kind of figures the Deputy is seeking. I could give him estimates but I do not wish to do so at this stage because that would not be giving a service to this House. The Deputy has asked a question; when we have the details in relation to the level of the distribution of the spend, as envisaged in the national plan, we will be in a position to give the House the kind of information to which it is entitled.
We are talking to the Minister responsible for employment, and this is about employment, Sir.
I have allowed the Deputy quite some discretion in the matter. A final brief relevant question, please.
I am grateful, Sir. Do I take it that the Minister and his Department have not much regard for the projections that FÁS, an agency under his Department, have made to the effect that we can expect approximately 12,000 additional jobs in the five years ahead? Is that repudiated by the Minister?
Perhaps the House is not listening to the reply I am giving. I have said repeatedly that until such time as we know in detail the extent, location and direction of the spend of the £8,000 million we cannot give the kind of figures which the House is seeking. Of course we accept the thrust and the analysis that has been prepared by FÁS but it was prepared before the details of the spending of the national plan were set out. Therefore, it would be misleading for me to give opinions or projections to the House at this point. That information will be available within a short period and when it is available I will make it known to the House.