Ivor Callely
Question:12 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the remedial measures, if any, he has considered to address the chronic unemployment in Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13580/96]
Written Answers. - Initiatives to Tackle Unemployment.
I am only too well aware of the unemployment problem in Dublin. The current level of unemployment and in particular long-term unemployment is unacceptable and this Government has singled out the issue for priority treatment. In particular, the long-term unemployed have been targeted for special measures. I have already outlined on several occasions in this House the initiatives involved. These include the development of more friendly taxation and social welfare regimes and the introduction in this year's budget of a series of precisely targeted employment measures: the splitting of the Community Employment (CE) programme into two distinct targetted options; introduction of a new pilot whole-time jobs option in Dublin, Cork and Limerick; introduction of a new recruitment subsidy scheme called "Jobstart"; introduction of a new work experience programme called "Work-Place"; and introduction of special measures for 18/19 year olds and the retention of certain benefits for those returning to work.
The establishment of the local employment service represents an important component of the Government's response to tackling long-term unemployment. The local employment centres are being established in the northside, Finglas-Cabra, Dublin inner city, Tallaght and Ballymun. As such five out of the initial 14 that are being established nationwide are located in Dublin.
The distinctive additional elements of this service, in providing an individually tailored progression path towards employment for its clients and in ensuring that there is a well co-ordinated employment delivery service at local level, should yield real benefits in terms of securing employment for long-term unemployed persons, as the service develops. This innovative approach is being launched initially in 14 key areas, including the major unemployment black-spots — in other words, targeted where it is most crucially needed.
I am confident that the above measures together with the ongoing work of IDA Ireland, Forbairt and the Community Enterprise Boards in attracting jobs to the country will have a considerable impact on improving/ enhancing the employment prospects of unemployed people in Dublin as well as other areas/regions. In this regard I would draw the Deputy's attention to the IDA Annual Report which was published this week. This report shows record job creation by overseas companies in Ireland during 1995, resulting in IDA Ireland achieving their three year net jobs target one year ahead of schedule.
In Dublin, in recent times there has been an explosion of jobs created. In this regard I was pleased to announce a few weeks ago a major expansion of Gateway 2000 involving the creation of 1,200 new jobs for Dublin's northside and which will bring total employment by the company in Ireland to 2,300. This is remarkable given that their Irish operation was only established in 1993. Also Deputies will be aware that IBM yesterday announced the creation of 750 new jobs as a result of their decision to set up a customer support centre in Blanchardstown to provide both technical support and customer services for their organisations in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
On behalf of the Government I would like to take this opportunity of paying particular tribute to all in IDA Ireland, for their achievements in recent times, which represents a doubling of job creation levels in overseas companies compared with a decade ago. For the information of the House a total of 11,500 new jobs were created and filled by IDA supported companies during 1995, compared with 9,800 in 1994. Over 10,100 of these new jobs were first time jobs and the remaining 1,400 were the recovery of jobs previously lost.