Job Creation and Economic Growth: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Jonathan O'Brien on Tuesday, 12 March 2013:
“That Dáil Éireann:
notes that:
— the disastrous economic management of the previous Fianna Fáil Government resulted in unemployment rates rising from 5 per cent in 2008 to 13 per cent in 2009, peaking at 14.3 per cent in September 2010; and unemployment rates have continued at this level under the current Government;
— the rates of long-term unemployment have increased, with almost 60 per cent of all unemployed persons out of work for more than 12 months; and the youth unemployment level is in excess of 27 per cent; and
— the levels of emigration have increased over the past two years, with 167,000 leaving since 2011, which equates to over 1,600 people leaving every week;
further notes:
— in 2012 almost 12,800 net full-time jobs were lost in the economy and replaced by 14,000 part-time jobs;
— the rise in underemployment, with almost one third of part-time workers seeking additional hours;
— that the Government Action Plan on Jobs fails to have annual targets for job creation or reductions in levels of unemployment and has failed the test of tackling unemployment;
— the failure of bailout banks to support small and medium enterprises, SMEs, with increased new lending;
— that as the largest employer, the Government has shredded 30,000 jobs, which has undermined public services;
— that the employment crisis has a differential impact on communities across the State and the Government has failed to address these inequalities;
— the resilience of our SME sector and our workers who have continued to work and produce goods and services in an economy undermined by Government policy; and
— the negative impact of the Border with regard to realising the economic potential of our island;
acknowledges that the Government:
— has failed to impact, in a substantive way, on the unemployment crisis;
— has a role to play in creating and retaining jobs; and
— should fully support workers and the SME sector to promote growth and jobs; and
calls on the Government to:
— establish a jobs stimulus fund of €13 billion to reflect the scale of the crisis we face;
— target investment towards projects that will create employment, develop infrastructure and enhance our competitiveness;
— tackle barriers to competitiveness by:
— abolishing upward only rent review clauses;
— addressing excessive utility, legal and insurance costs;
— introducing progressive commercial rates; and
— combatting cartels;
— pledge that citizens are not forced into emigration by economic necessity; and to put in place schemes that will guarantee young people jobs, training or continued education;
— develop regional targets and budgets to promote job creation and tackle economic inequalities; and
— work with the Northern Ireland Executive to promote an all-island approach to skills, job creation and economic growth.”
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:
“acknowledges the Government's recent achievements in:
— renegotiating the EU-IMF bailout to cut interest payments and free up investments for stimulus;
— reducing Ireland's borrowing needs by €20 billion over the coming decade by securing a restructuring of the promissory notes to creditors in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide;
— improving access to finance for business by:
— re-capitalising the pillar banks;
— setting lending targets; and
— introducing new financing options such as the partial credit guarantee scheme, the microfinance fund and the development capital scheme;
— placing a whole-of-Government focus on supporting job creation through the cumulative effect of the annual Action Plan for Jobs process, which builds on the initial Jobs Initiative of May 2011; and
— assisting the long-term unemployed being prepared to move into employment through more regular engagement, upskilling and training under the Pathways to Work programme;
notes:
— the systematic way in which the Government and its agencies implemented the 2012 Action Plan for Jobs which, in parallel with the recently launched 2013 plan, is helping to transform the operating environment for business, to support job creation and competitiveness; subsequent action plans will build on the work completed by the first two;
— a net increase of over 10,000 jobs in Enterprise Ireland and the Industrial Development Authority, IDA, Ireland companies in 2012, which is the highest level of job creation since 2006 for Enterprise Ireland companies, and the highest level in a decade for IDA Ireland companies;
— the 1,200 increase in employment in the latest quarterly national household survey figures which is the first annual increase in employment recorded since the second quarter of 2008;
— that private sector employment has grown on average by 1,000 jobs a month in the past 15 months; this is in contrast to 250,000 private sector jobs being lost in the three years before the current Government took office;
— the major jobs announcements since March 2011 including: PayPal, 1,000 jobs; Kerry Group, 800 jobs; Sky, 800 jobs; Paddy Power, 600 jobs; Mylan, 500 jobs; Apple, 500 jobs; Northern Trust, 400 jobs; EA/Bioware, 500 jobs in total; Eli Lilly, 200 jobs; and HP, 280 jobs;
— the regional spread of these new jobs, including new investments in Letterkenny, Sligo, Mayo, Westport, Galway, Louth, Dundalk, Drogheda, Kildare, Leixlip, Kilkenny, Bray and Limerick;
— the latest goods trade figures published by the Central Statistics Office, which showed that goods exports in 2012 increased on 2011 levels to hit €92 billion, the highest figure since 2002, while services exports for the first nine months of 2012 are up over 11% on the equivalent period in 2011; hence, the annual overall increase in exports for 2012 is likely to be significant;
— that budget 2013 includes a ten point plan to support the small and medium enterprise sector;
— the achievement of the Government in securing agreement under the Irish Presidency of the EU for a pan-European fund of €6 billion for a youth guarantee scheme to address youth unemployment;
— that, through a variety of funds and schemes, the Government has managed to provide more than €2 billion of non-bank, new streams of finance into the market through such initiatives as the development capital fund, the partial credit guarantee scheme, innovation fund Ireland, a new seed and venture capital fund and a variety of National Pensions Reserve Fund SME funds;
— the on-going cross-Border co-operation on economic development, through the work of agencies such as Tourism Ireland, InterTradeIreland and others; and
— the increased expenditure on employment support schemes since the current Government took office, such that total spending in support of people who are unemployed has increased significantly from €958 million in 2012 to €1.045 billion in 2013 with an additional 10,000 work placements as well as support for additional training and educational opportunities; and
commends the Government on:
— restoring Ireland's reputation internationally as a stable economy which is open for business and attractive for investors; with the two major international rankings of competitiveness indicating that our performance is going in the right direction;according to the IMD's World Competitiveness Yearbook, Ireland is ranked 20th in 2012, up from 24th in 2011;
— re-establishing order in the banking system and allowing Ireland to re-enter the bond markets;
— maintaining Ireland's corporation tax rate at 12.5% and keeping income taxes at the same levels since coming into Government;
— the implementation of a stringent monitoring and reporting structure for the cross-Government implementation of the Action Plan for Jobs, led by the Department of the Taoiseach, to ensure that job creation is the number one priority of all Departments and agencies of the State;
— the strategic focus of the disruptive reforms measures contained in the Action Plan for Jobs, being implemented in partnership with senior industry figures, which have the potential for significant job creation;
— facilitating growth in employment for the first time since 2008 by systematically tackling issues that have improved the operating environment for business and strengthened Ireland's competitiveness;
— recognising the critical contribution of the micro and small business sector in job creation and commends the Government's commitment to reform of the micro and small business infrastructure, including providing a first-stop-shop to support the sector;
— targeting investment under its capital investment programme at projects that will create employment; and
— addressing the skills needs of the economy through programmes such as Springboard, JobBridge and the ICT Action Plan, which are providing education, training and work experience directly linked to the needs of the enterprise sector.
- (Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation)
I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to speak on this very important motion. Unemployment is a huge problem in this State and we need to act sensibly to protect and develop jobs in the real economy. We also have to be honest and open on this issue and deal with the facts. In 2012 almost 12,800 full-time jobs were lost to the economy and replaced by 14,000 part-time jobs. There has been a rise in under-employment with almost one third of part-time workers seeking additional hours. The Government's action plan on jobs fails to have annual targets for job creation or reduction in levels of unemployment and has failed the test of tackling unemployment. We also have to look very seriously at the failure of the bailout banks to support small and medium enterprises with increased new lending. The largest employer, the Government, has also shredded 30,000 jobs which has undermined public services. That is often left out of this debate. The employment crisis makes differing impacts on communities across the State and the Government has failed to address these inequalities.
We have also seen the resilience of the SME sector and the workers who have continued to work and produce goods and services in an economy which is being undermined by Government policy. Emigration is rarely mentioned. We are losing 1,600 young people every week. We have spent millions of euro training and educating these people and now they are on the road to Australia, New Zealand, England and America. The Government cannot ignore the SME sector and more needs to be done for it because it is the economy in communities that needs to be serviced. For example, in the Howth area, in my new constituency, Dublin Bay North, the proposed pay for parking is a huge issue. It will lead to major loss of jobs in the catering and tourism sectors, if the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Coveney, and the Government implement it. This could affect between 300 and 500 jobs in the Howth region. I urge the Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy McGinley, to listen and to support the people of Howth by blocking the fee for parking issue because many retailers, small businesses and restaurants need support. If the Government implements this policy it will damage the integrity of those local jobs. I urge Deputies to support this motion. It is a very important motion and debate on jobs and we should all rally behind it.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the jobs crisis. I want to concentrate on Donegal where the crisis is probably at its bleakest. We have heard much about the success of the Government and the IDA in attracting investment to the country in the past year. We are told they have brought in over 12,500 jobs. Only 28 of those were in the north west and exactly zero in Donegal. An export-led recovery means nothing for the people of Donegal when we see that there is no commitment to foreign direct investment in the north west. The so-called action plan for jobs has not delivered. I do not believe it will deliver because the Government has made no commitment to the domestic economy. There are few if any supports for businesses that are struggling in the domestic economy. As businesses have closed in the county there has been a cycle of reduction in spending power in the local economy leading to more closures and that cycle continues.
The decline in traditional industries such as fishing has removed a vital income from many rural areas around the county and the failure of the Government to deal with the fishing ban in area 6A has caused many people to lose their livelihood. In my own town of Killybegs fish processors have received grant aid to improve their production facilities that has led to the loss of hundreds of jobs as the processors have become more efficient. This is justified by the Government in order to improve the viability of the remaining jobs but the lack of response to support replacement jobs has sapped local confidence.
This Government has to re-focus on the domestic economy and SMEs to ensure that we can grow jobs. There has been some minor good news too. I recently attended the Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-up Roadshow where six Donegal enterprises were show-cased. These businesses are focused on export which shows some sign of hope for job creation. If these enterprises can grow and develop the county will benefit. If the Government does not support the local economy, however, and the small retail and employment sector serving that economy, the ability of these businesses to maintain themselves in the county and to develop and grow will be greatly undermined. The Government needs to focus on the local economy to make sure that the issues that have starved spending and stifled business are addressed. This includes dealing fully with the mortgage crisis by write-downs of unsustainable debt and not simply re-stating existing policy again and again.
Self-evidently the Government's policy on jobs and its promise to get Ireland working is failing. We lost 14,000 full-time jobs last year. If it was not for emigration the unemployment crisis, which is already very severe, would be at absolutely catastrophic levels. It really seems as if emigration is the Government's jobs policy and that is a shame for any Government, given the history of this State. I have made those points many times as have others. Tonight I want to concentrate on two particular issues.
The Government goes on and on about the need to upskill, re-educate and re-train people. I have just come from a meeting in Dún Laoghaire organised by teachers in the further education sector where they protested about the Government's plans to increase the staff-student ratio from 1:17 to 1:19. They point out that this sector has been absolutely critical in finding a pathway into third level education and employment for many of the people who are not suited to the normal CAO and academic system. It has been a very successful sector and they pointed out that as a result of what the Government is doing in our area alone 14 jobs will be lost, across the country 500, and thousands of places for students, particularly those from disadvantaged areas, who had a pathway into further education and employment, will be cut. How can the Government claim that it needs to re-train, re-educate and re-orientate our economy and at the same time slash a sector which will be absolutely critical to achieving that end? I appeal to the Government to back off on the increase in the staff-student ratio, take away the caps from the further education sector and protect and develop this sector which will be critical to re-training people who need to work or are coming out of school.
My second point is about forestry. There are many studies which show in detail that every 15,000 hectares of forest planted can generate 500 or 600 jobs. We have completely failed to deliver on our afforestation targets. In Switzerland, a country half the size of ours, 100,000 people work on the same amount of forestry as ours yet only 10,000 are employed here. The Government proposes to sell off the harvesting rights to that forestry rather than have a programme of public investment to develop the forestry sector and create potentially 50,000 or 100,000 jobs over ten years if we meet our afforestation targets. I urge the Government not to sell the forestry rights and instead to invest in this sector to create jobs and revenue for the State.
One of the key elements in securing Ireland's future is the proper investment in our human potential. Education and training is key. The Government unfortunately has not given education and training anything like the priority it should. In an employment crisis one of the last areas in which we should be making this type of cut is education and training. A key part of the answer to unemployment and disadvantage is to expand educational and training opportunities and play to our strengths. An example is the problem we are having trying to fill vacancies in the high-tech sector. Companies in the area are filling vacancies from abroad because of the lack of suitably qualified Irish graduates. Last year 2,000 of these jobs went unfilled.
We are constantly told how a company has announced X number of jobs and another has announced Y number of jobs. The expectation is that these jobs will be filled by people who are on the unemployment register. However, up to 2,000 positions at the company in question were filled by people from outside the State.
In yesterday's edition of The Irish Times a well written article by Dan Hayden explained how IT education at second level in Ireland was far behind that in other countries. Our teachers are not sufficiently qualified to introduce new learning models to make the best use of technology. The national curriculum is far behind that in the likes of South Korea. This is deplorable. There is no point in rolling out broadband to second level schools if the curriculum is not in place or the schools do not have the computer equipment to take advantage of it.
One key point in dealing with our economic problems is that we need to get people back to work. This is absolutely essential if we are going to pay for public services without imposing significant new taxes, particularly on the low to middle income groups. Education and training have to focus on what they require. We need to be examining the skills that are deficient in the economy. We need to ensure those unemployed or in the education system will be filling new jobs, too.
I call Deputy Michelle Mulherin who I understand is sharing time with Deputies Connaughton, Conaghan, O'Reilly, Spring, Lawlor and Twomey.
I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion which presents an opportunity to be positive and examine the positive developments in the economy. There are many reasons we might not want to get out of bed in the morning, but there are many good reasons, too, if we focus on them. There is hope on the horizon and evidence of economic recovery, with increased foreign direct investment, exports and employment. We have also tackled problems such as credit availability for business, creating new financing options in the process. It is easy to sneeze at these developments and make nothing of them. However, the significance of 15,000 jobs created in the past 18 months is stark when compared to the 250,000 jobs lost before the Government took office. Arguably, they were in areas that could never sustain the level of growth they had enjoyed, areas that were inflated. Inevitably, the bubble had to burst. This was akin to a tsunami which swept over the country and, regrettably, this economic catastrophe caused damage everywhere. We must focus bit by bit on recovery.
Apart from foreign direct investment and reorganising of the public finances, there has been a dogged campaign by the Government to improve our relations with our trading countries. We have looked outward and rebuilt trading relations with the United Kingdom, other European countries and the United States, while building new relationships with China. Credit must be given to the Taoiseach for his energy, enthusiasm and positivity in the face of a wall of negativity from the Opposition benches which is also affecting the national psyche. In doing so, he has restored confidence in this proud country which is shouldering a terrible legacy, one which it is not shirking. Rebuilding our trading relations with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States and China is no mean feat considering the position the country found itself in with the IMF.
I have no problem with Ministers travelling abroad for St. Patrick's Day, but there is always a nice howdy-do listing where they are going. What is forgotten is that there are millions around the world of Irish descent and many more not of Irish descent who embrace Irishness and all want to be part of our recovery. They want to be acknowledged as part of our solution and that their talents and achievements are ours.
Sinn Féin's economic policy hinges on sky hooks and pie in the sky stuff. If it had its way with its wealth tax proposal, we would not have a farmer left in the country worth talking about. Sinn Féin's motion calls for €13 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund and the European Investment Bank to be used to fund a stimulus package. This is from the very party the financial policy of which was to renege on the promissory notes signed by the Minister for Finance in the previous Government. How could we then go back to the European Investment Bank to ask for cash for a stimulus package? This is just populism and determined by whatever is going down at home.
We need to focus on indigenous resources and industries. We used to have a linen industry and other cottage industries. We also have a religious heritage that does not receive mainstream tourism promotion. We have the best renewable energy resources such as wave and wind power in the whole of Europe.
The trees will not be around for long.
I hope the memorandum of understanding being pursued by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources with the British Government for the exporting of wind energy will not just benefit the producers and local landowners. I hope it will be looked at as a resource in the same way as we look at oil and gas in order that royalties and carbon credits are paid.
That is not the case with oil and gas.
I hope such an arrangement can be stapled to the agreement to ensure such benefits can be derived from our resources.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the motion. I support the amendment to it and the intense focus the Government is placing on supporting job creation through the Action Plan for Jobs. While I welcome major job announcements made during the tenure of the Government, including 500 jobs in gaming firms EA and BioWare, it is the Government's focus on exporting firms and the small and medium-sized business sector that is the real success of policy to date. This intense focus will remain on these sectors in coming months and years.
Regarding small and medium-sized businesses, the Government has given due recognition to the important issue of local authority rates. It is welcome that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, has written to local authorities asking them to exercise restraint or, where possible, reduce commercial rates for 2013. To date this year, all bar one of the rating authorities have either reduced their rate or kept it the same, resulting in an average decrease from last year to this year of 0.34%, following on from similar decreases of between 0.3% and 0.6% in the preceding three years.
Rates remain high and our focus will have to remain on the subject, but we also have to recognise their importance to the local government system, yet small businesses are the lifeblood of economies in villages and towns. Our focus must be on doing everything in our power to assist such businesses, particularly given the extremely difficult trading circumstances that prevail.
Another item which ties in with the issue of rates is water charges. The Government has committed to the introduction of domestic water charges and it is anticipated that the labour-intensive process of installing water meters on 1.35 million domestic properties will sustain over 1,500 jobs for the next two years. These new jobs will be most welcome for the thousands of former construction workers now seeking employment. Another welcome aspect is that these jobs will be spread across the country rather than concentrated in one area.
I note the social inclusion element of the contracts require that Irish Water hire 10% of people from SMEs, 10% from the unemployment register and 5% from the apprentice, graduate or school leaver sector. These jobs will be much sought after but will provide opportunities for people from these sectors who often are those most in need of employment. It is particularly welcome that one in every 20 workers will be a school leaver, apprentice or graduate, as too often young people find that they are left with no work opportunities on leaving school.
Many who used to be self-employed but are now unemployed find they have had not built up enough PRSI credits. This issue still needs to be addressed. There are too many people not getting the supports they need from their social welfare offices. For a long time, when they were employed, they paid high rates of tax and provided for the economy but now find themselves outside the circle. We need to make changes either in the Department of Social Protection or the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to find supports for them. Once they cannot get into social protection system, they are barred from the training programmes it provides. It must be remembered the very last place in which these people want to find themselves is their local social protection office.
We have had a situation whereby we have seen changes in recent years. I welcome many of the Government announcements but we must remember those people, especially those from the construction sector, who have lost their jobs. Many of these people attend clinics throughout the county. They will not re-skill or retrain in many of the areas in the high technology sector to which we have referred. We must find another construction sector but it will not be where it used to be. We cannot go back there but we cannot ignore the number of people who have come from the construction sector and who are now out of work. The Government has achieved a good deal in two years but there is a good deal more to do.
Coming out of the recession in the 1980s successive Governments focused their attentions on building a broad-based sustainable economy. That approach was best exemplified by the rainbow coalition of the 1990s with the Labour Party Minister for Finance, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, at the helm. However, in 14 years of power Fianna Fáil deconstructed this model at the bidding of their friends the developers, the builders and the bankers, who completed the golden circle. They skewed a sustainable economy and replaced it with a narrow, fragile economy built on the unsteady foundations of a construction bubble. As a consequence, when the bubble burst jobs were lost at an unprecedented rate. The construction sector was ravaged and the retail sector followed suit. Some 300,000 jobs were lost in only three years, the last three years of the Fianna Fáil Government. Unemployment jumped from 5% in 2008 to 14% by the time this Government took office in 2011. The scale, magnitude and speed of the structural collapse of our economy is unprecedented. This Government has taken on no ordinary task.
Rebuilding a shattered economy is the first objective of the Government. We need to create sustainable jobs for the thousands who have found themselves without work. One consequence of the economic collapse and the parallel banking crisis was that the flow of foreign investment to Ireland dwindled and major multinationals made thousands redundant. Confidence in Ireland evaporated internationally and in the markets. This was only two years ago. Who would have thought that only two years later confidence would be rebuilt? This Government has restored confidence in the country. International investors now have renewed faith in Ireland.
Unemployed construction workers form the greatest single category of people left unable to find work in recent years. However, the Government is taking steps and making investments that will provide hope to a great many of them. Major infrastructural projects will offer thousands of jobs to unemployed construction workers and give a welcome boost to the local economy in areas of Dublin struggling with high unemployment. The construction of the new DIT campus at Grangegorman will see the creation of many jobs for construction workers and the Grangegorman Development Agency has put in place an employment charter that will see a portion of these jobs go to local people and those on the live register. Similarly, the Government deserves great credit for ensuring that the national children's hospital project will go ahead. This will represent a significant boost to the south west of the city and the many unemployed construction workers in the area. I have worked closely with St. James's Hospital and the Department of Social Protection to ensure that as many of these jobs as possible go to local people. Beyond the children's hospital and Grangegorman projects, we should consider further infrastructural projects to create jobs in urban communities. The DART underground project is one such example. The business case for the DART is rock solid. It will bring great coherence to the existing transport infrastructure and create many jobs. Every effort should been made by the Government to ensure that the necessary capital investment is found for this major project as soon as possible.
The green economy can also play an important part in securing sustainable employment for those with the relevant skills in the construction field. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, announced recently that as many as 5,000 jobs will be created in the green energy sector through a €70 million energy efficiency fund. This, along with more than 4,000 jobs supported by retrofitting schemes, shows how the existing construction skills of the unemployed can be redeployed through appropriate training to meet the new needs of the country and the economy. These measures will bring to approximately 10,000 the number of former construction workers supported by green energy schemes. Furthermore, the development of green energy through the proposed major wind farm projects offers further opportunities for those who developed their skills during the construction boom to apply them to the new economy.
Most employment in Ireland is in the small and medium enterprise sector. The Government recognises the value of the SME sector in supporting our economy. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, is working to create an environment in which small and medium enterprises can flourish. The Government has set about identifying the factors inhibiting the growth of the sector and is tackling them in a strategic way. The strategy is to remove the obstacles, offer advice and build the capacity of our entrepreneurs to create jobs. Credit is the single greatest issue and this is why the Minister, Deputy Bruton, has launched two major new schemes to get credit flowing to businesses again, the credit guarantee scheme and the microfinance scheme. This will allow small businesses to grow and create jobs. The JobBridge scheme has been a major success for the Government. Some 52% of people who have finished JobBridge internships have gone on to secure full-time employment. Further measures, including the JobsPlus scheme announced as part of the Action Plan for Jobs recently, will incentivise employers to take long-term unemployed people off the live register. The youth guarantee, which the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, recently secured agreement for at European level, will offer either a job, work placement, traineeship, internship or education for every person under 25 years of age who has been out of work for more than four months. These are only some of the measures the Government is taking.
Thank you, Deputy. I must ask you to wrap up.
The task of tackling the unemployment crisis is daunting but not one this Government will shy away from. It will not be solved overnight and it will take strategic thinking across Departments and investment to achieve success. The work of rebuilding a shattered economy is well under way and I am convinced the Government is on the right path.
Every aspect of the economic strategy of this Government during the past two years has been predicated on the ambition to put our people back to work. That is the end objective of every action. However, before that could be achieved and before the private sector could begin to create jobs certain transformations had to be realised at a macro level. It was necessary for the Government to get the public finances in order. That process is well in play and we are on target. It was necessary to tackle the promissory note question which had the potential to cripple totally and stagnate the economy in the coming years. That has been dealt with. It was necessary to re-establish our international reputation by the foregoing two actions and more generally to ensure inward investment to the country. That has been done. It was necessary to deal with the interest rate question and the cost of borrowing and that has been achieved.
The proof that these background things are working is the fact that during the past year some 12,500 new jobs have been created by the private sector. It is a small number but it is a real start and an indication that the macroeconomic policies are working and that they are beginning to be translated into real-life situations. That is real progress.
I wish to focus on some of the particular responses to unemployment that have begun and which will be crucial in the coming years. The youth guarantee scheme sponsored by this Government and agreed at European level has remarkable potential. I wish the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, and the rest of the Cabinet well in its implementation in this country. A €6 billion fund has been created at European level. This represents a real stimulus and I hope we will achieve matching funding here. Tragically, there is 30% unemployment among young people in the 18 to 25 age bracket. The scheme means that any young person who is unemployed for four months will be guaranteed a job or training course. All empirical evidence suggests that young people who are unemployed for a long period are likely to remain in that predicament into adult life and beyond. Early intervention is critical to deal with the unemployment question.
Another remarkably important issue for this country is the need to develop an information and communications technology strategy and that is already in play. The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation discovered that there are 4,500 information and communications technology jobs available in the country, while in Germany there are 400,000. A strategy has been put in place. A total of 900 places were created last year and 760 new places will be created in 2013 for information and communications technology honours degree courses. That is an important strategy.
The tourism initiative involving a 9% VAT rate has worked and, as Deputy Mulherin noted earlier, the potential for Irish tourism is considerable and not yet properly tapped.
The credit guarantee and microfinance schemes are important in this regard. The IDA will have to regionalise its inward investment efforts to the greatest extent possible. Investors are free to go where they want but inland areas do not have the same pull for job creation. Investments tend to go to the big population centres on the east coast. I appeal to the Government to be proactive in that regard. I would also like to see a variety of initiatives being taken at departmental level in the energy area.
Lasts night's debate was robust but I did not find its tone particularly helpful. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, were passionate in describing what they are trying to achieve for the betterment of the country in terms of creating jobs and ending the blight of emigration. This Private Members' motion is not helpful. Instead of identifying areas in which we might act further, it claims we are acting wrongly.
On my first day in this House I endorsed the Cabinet and identified the acronym of TEAM - tourism, energy, agribusiness and microenterprise - as the four core competencies on which we could build our recovery. However, the overwhelming momentum for the country was negative. We were dealing with a banking collapse and a lack of confidence throughout the country. People were taking their money out of their accounts and crossing the Border to lodge them in bank accounts in Newry. The country was locked out of the bond market and people did not see any potential for growth.
The self-employed have played a central role in creating jobs. We need to breed entrepreneurs like Gerry Kennelly, who operates a youth entrepreneur programme in County Kerry. That is the way forward. Our public sector is quite good by European standards but we also need entrepreneurs who are knowledgeable and who can be ambassadors. The people who will leave these shores on behalf of IDA and Enterprise Ireland over the coming weekend are doing a great job promoting the country as a place to do business and showing off the calibre of the Irish people. We are intelligent, hard working and passionate. We are Anglophones with a good corporation tax rate and, most important, we want to win. We want to give ourselves a proper standard of living and a future for our children. We will none the less have to address the issues of reskilling and retraining. We cannot simply move people from construction to information technology. We need not only commercial initiatives but also infrastructure projects backed by the State and the European Investment Bank.
Unfortunately, I come from a county which has an infrastructure deficit. The European Union provides a regional aid programme for Ireland but County Kerry has the second lowest level of disposable income of the 32 counties. Unemployment rates in the county have increased by 160% in the past five years. The south west regional authority is the second most efficient and prosperous in Ireland, after Dublin, but if Cork and Kerry are separated the latter is the least looked after county in the country. The BMW region is able to attract foreign direct investment as a result of the incentives it can bestow on foreign companies. Other than a technology park in Tralee which employs 400 people, Kerry has received only two visits which were orchestrated by Government Deputies. The strategy on jobs is Dublin centric. The best way to achieve equalisation is to find out what we are most capable of doing. We need to work with the institutes of technologies and universities. We plan to push for university status for Tralee but we also need a plan for expanding industry.
This has been a good day for mortgages. Two key issues arise for my generation, namely, unemployment and personal indebtedness. I welcome the statement by the Minister for Finance on dealing with personal indebtedness because it will give people head space as well as pocket space. We also enjoyed success in raising money in the markets earlier today. Two years' ago there was no way we could have raised €3 billion. We were oversubscribed by 400%. More than 400 private investors endorsed what we are doing. The bond market is the lifeline of the country. We have been endorsed for doing the right thing but austerity is not prosperity. We cannot fix everything immediately but the momentum is in the right direction. If the Deputies opposite will not help they should get out of the way but otherwise they should get onboard to push in the right direction and get the people of our country back to work. There is no point in speaking in this House unless one contributes something positive.
I thank the Sinn Féin Deputies for moving this motion because it gives us an opportunity to put the record straight and to tell the truth. A couple of weeks ago I watched a television programme about people who were emigrating and putting their belongings into boxes and trucks. Young people were going to a work expo to look for jobs overseas. This programme was made by the BBC and it was called "Departure Diaries". It was about the number of people who are leaving Northern Ireland. Who is in charge of Northern Ireland? Who is the main source of power in Northern Ireland? It is Sinn Féin.
Approximately 25,000 people left Northern Ireland last year, which is an average of 500 per week. The unemployment rate in the UK is falling but in Northern Ireland, with Sinn Féin in charge, it increased by 1% last year. Youth unemployment increased by 155% in Northern Ireland in the past five years. One in every five people under the age of 24 is unemployed. House prices have dropped by 50% in the past five years.
The motion proposes to introduce progressive commercial rates. In the past four years, Sinn Féin has upped the rates in every district in the North, particularly in the districts in which it is in charge. Economic activity in the North is the lowest of all the regions of the UK. Sinn Féin is in charge of Northern Ireland.
(Interruptions).
Unemployment is falling down here. The motion notes that 14,000 people are in part-time work. Only 200 of those 14,000 people are looking for extra hours. Let us deal with reality when we set out the figures. I am sad to acknowledge that a considerable number of people are leaving this country but the statistics show that 50% of those who leave the Republic are returning to the country from whence they came.
Whether it is Poland or whether it is eastern Europe, they are the facts and statistics and they cannot be denied. I look at Sinn Féin's economic policy and I compare it to George Orwell's book Animal Farm, but I do not know which member of Sinn Féin would be Napoleon. As the Deputy is aware, one of the main themes of that book was that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. As far as Sinn Féin is concerned, I see it as a two-headed monster, with one head facing the North and the other the South. It sees all Irishmen as equal, but some more equal than others.
Some people have overrun their slot so I will allow just a few minutes for Deputy Twomey.
The Minister, Deputy Bruton, should be congratulated on the work he is doing to create jobs, training and opportunities within the constraints of our economic situation. Some €6 billion in funding is being provided from the pan-European fund that is being set up for youth unemployment and I hope we can obtain a significant proportion of that because youth unemployment is a significant issue here. Some €2 billion in funding is also available from the development capital fund, the partial credit guarantee scheme, the venture capital fund and a variety of national pensions reserve fund SME funds to try to stimulate our economy and get people back to work. These initiatives are practical and realistic. If there is a criticism to be made, it is that the Government needs to tighten up on its figures.
I am sorry for Deputy Doherty. He is not the son of God and will not be able to re-enact the miracle of the loaves and the fishes if he is ever in power here. There are significant financial constraints in the economy, but we are working with them to get people back to work. The Minister should be congratulated on the work he is doing to focus in on and target areas where we can create employment. We have been very successful in that over the past couple of years. We have seen an increase in jobs within the private sector and have seen international confidence restored and I hope this translates across the country over the next couple of years.
I hope we can have a positive outlook and see the potential of our young people and get them into work and training. There is a significant number of initiatives in place and we must target as many people as we can for reskilling and retraining. They have worked in unskilled jobs, but now need to acquire the kind of skills necessary today. The Government is working to do this. That is what we hope to achieve for everybody in the country.
I call Deputy Pearse Doherty, who is sharing his time with Deputies Ó Snodaigh, Stanley, Ferris, Ó Caoláin and Adams.
I honestly do not know how to respond to some of the comments made by Deputy Lawlor. I am not sure whether his leg injury went to his head, but it seriously affected the information he provided here today.
We put down this motion to bring to the attention of Government something it has failed to see, because its members have their heads so far stuck in the sand that they fail to realise there is a massive unemployment crisis. Despite the Government being two years in office and despite all its cheerleaders coming in to pump out the party line, it has failed to make any impact whatsoever on the unemployment crisis.
People may try to say that those emigrating are people returning to their home countries, as if it is acceptable that there is nothing more here to offer them. However, the reality is that if one goes to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Vancouver, New York or London, one will know the streets there are filled with young Irish people. Some 87,000 people left these shores -----
Some 25,000 left the North.
Some 87,000 left this State last year and the same number left the year before. That is a failure of political leadership and a failure of every Member in the House who supports a Government with its head stuck in the sand.
I got a letter today from an individual who talked about the misery of being unemployed and about having to turn to professional counselling services to try to scrape her way out of the dark hole she is in. She is still unable to get on a job activation scheme. I know the situation from people in my constituency who have never seen the good times, if they ever existed, where employment was available. We in Donegal and the north west, in particular in the Border region, have always suffered from a higher level of unemployment. The level of unemployment today in Donegal is 28%. Some Deputies think that is acceptable and some of them think it is acceptable to come in here and talk absolute nonsense and rubbish without any reference to the facts and figures.
Let us look at the details of Sinn Féin's proposal. Earlier I heard Deputy Mulherin say that Sinn Féin's wealth tax would scare off every farmer in the State. Has she not read our policy document? It states that farm income and farm assets are not included in the assessment of wealth tax. Perhaps she has not looked at the legislation we drafted and published, which provides more detail on this. Perhaps her contribution was just lazy political representation from a party that has shown a pathetic attempt to deal with the massive crisis we face.
There are things that can be done. What both parties in government said when in opposition was that there would need to be an investment in the real economy to get people back to work. We agree with that. Where we differed at the time was with regard to the scale and size of that investment and how it would be done. I would settle at this point in time for the then Fine Gael or Labour Party plan for employment in this State, because at that time they were promising to put €7 billion and more into the economy to get people back to work. The young people of this State and the mothers and fathers who must wish them goodbye at Dublin, Cork or Knock airports cannot wait for another two years for the Government to get its act together. This needs immediate action and attention.
The figures do not lie. There are 430,000 people unemployed, some 60% of them long-term unemployed. One in every three young person in the State is unemployed. This is the shameful record of a Government that has its head so far in the sand that it cannot see what is happening in its communities. It should have had the decency to say it wants to do more, rather than trot out the kind of bull that has been thrown out tonight. This type of attitude from the Government gives no hope to people who are suffering due to long-term unemployment. There is no recognition from the Government of the crisis that is gripping communities the length and breadth of the State.
Is é an fáth gur chuir Sinn Féin an rún seo síos ná gur theip ar an Rialtas cuidiú le na céadta míle daoine atá dífhostaithe. Tá na daoine seo ag fanacht le na poist a gealladh dóibh sa toghchán deireanach, poist atá tuilte acu. Ach níl an Rialtas seo chun an geallúint a thug sé le linn an toghcháin a shásamh. Níl sé chun na geallúintí a rinne sé a chomhlíonadh cé gur chuir siad amach fógra i ndiaidh fógra go raibh poist le teacht. Níl na poist sin ann.
An rud is gránna faoi seo ar fad nach bhfeiceann an Rialtas go bhfuil an cheist seo práinneach. Diaidh ar ndiadh, tá an Rialtas seo ag leanúint ar aghaidh le polasaithe Fhianna Fáil agus ag tabhairt aire do na rachmasaithe agus dóibh siúd a chothaigh na faidhbe sa chéad dul síos. Chomh maith le sin, tá an Rialtas ag cur airgid a bhféadfaí a infheistiú i gcruthú poist sa tír isteach i bpoll dubh na mbanc. Is í an cheist mhór, an eilifint sa seomra, ná cá bhfuil na poist? Níl daoine ag lorg gimicí. Níl siad ag lorg na CE schemes agus a leithéid atá á dtairiscint. Dar ndóígh, tá ról ann dá leithéid, ach sa deireadh thiar is é an rud atá ag teastáil ó daoine atá dífhostaithe ná post ceart a thuillfidh airgead dóibh agus a thabharfaidh deis dóibh bia a chur ar an mbord.
Deputy Lawlor is definitely deluded. This is very strange coming from a member of a party that calls itself the united Ireland party. That party has never contested an election in the Six Counties nor ever informed itself properly of what happened during the Good Friday Agreeement.
The demand from Sinn Féin and from every true republican was to transfer fiscal powers to Ireland once again, so that Irish people could levy taxes and use those moneys to invest in jobs.
The truth hurts, Deputy Lawlor.
What I have said is the truth.
At the moment, taxes raised in the North are haemorrhaging to Westminster and are spent in England rather than in the Six Counties. They are not available to be invested in jobs. In the same way, the money raised in taxes in this State is not available to be invested in jobs because the Government is putting it into the black hole of the banking system. We have demanded a stimulus package. If one invests money in jobs, one gets a return on that. It is basic economics. The Government and its predecessor have failed miserably to invest in jobs. This Government has invested in retraining and reskilling programmes, for which I accept there is a role and a need. The problem at the moment is that there are no jobs at the end of these programmes, which means the Government is investing in emigration. It is paying to retrain and reskill Irish citizens before they go abroad. Our investment in skills is benefiting the economies of other countries, such as Canada and Australia. When I was in London last weekend, I learned that many Irish people with very few skills are ending up there because there is nothing here for them. God love them, there is very little for them in London either. The Government is not doing anything to give them hope for the future. Where are the jobs? That is the elephant in the room.
Some 25,000 people left Northern Ireland last year.
The jobs are not in this State and are not likely to be in this State.
We spoke earlier about the mess the Government inherited when it came into power. I accept that an appalling mess had been created over the previous 13 or 14 years. Nobody would deny that. When they came into power, Government representatives liked to talk about jobs, jobs and more jobs. Since then, we have had many launches and relaunches but things have not really improved on the ground. My constituency of Laois-Offaly seems to have been completely forgotten about. IDA Ireland's record in the area is absolutely disgraceful. There were two visits by IDA Ireland-sponsored companies to County Laois in 2011. Last year, there were no IDA Ireland-backed visits to the county even though IDA Ireland facilities are lying empty throughout the county. County Offaly has not fared much better. It received one visit in each of 2011 and 2012.
Unemployment in counties Laois and Offaly has increased since the Government came into power. I wish I could stand here and say otherwise, but I have to set out the facts exactly as they are. When the Government took office, some 8,546 people were unemployed in County Laois. That number has since increased to 8,858. Over the same period, the number of unemployed people in County Offaly has increased from 9,234 to 9,270. They are the facts of the Government's record. The Government's job creation plans appear to be in tatters. I do not know whether its promises have been abandoned. The figures show that the dole queues in towns like Portlaoise, Portarlington, Rathdowney, Birr, Tullamore and Edenderry are expanding, unfortunately, even at a time of mass emigration.
It is obvious from Deputy Mulherin's comments that she has not read Sinn Féin's job creation proposals. She came in to make a false accusation before running out of the Chamber. It is a pity she did not stay for the rest of the debate. The same thing applies to Deputy Lawlor. I would like to highlight three areas of the four-year stimulus package we have proposed. The fund that would be put in place as part of this proposal would have the potential to create up to 150,000 long-term and short-term jobs.
Our proposal to re-establish the sugar beet industry, which was closed under the previous Fianna Fáil-led Government, would be of particular benefit to the midlands and the south east. The demise of the sugar industry had a negative impact on both regions. Over 350 farmers in County Laois alone were affected by it. Contractors and seasonal factory workers are jobless as a result of the closure of the industry. The site of the original factory on the Laois-Carlow border is derelict. We are proposing that a factory be re-established. The location in question, right on the edge of County Laois, is ideal as it would serve the midlands and the south east. We hope the Government will support our proposal, which involves the development of a bioethanol industry alongside this sugar processing facility and has the potential to create up to 5,000 jobs.
We are also calling for money to be invested in water infrastructure. The Government is proposing to take money out of the National Pensions Reserve Fund and put it into meters. A comparison between the figures for Wales and the figures for Dublin will demonstrate why this approach will fail to save any water. Meters do not save water. One can save water by fixing the leaks in the system. The problem is that the Government's proposal will create some short-term jobs, but it will not save money in the long term because the leaks will continue. Sinn Féin's more sustainable approach, whereby this money is used to fix the leaks, will lead to a better return in the medium and long terms.
We are also asking the national private pension industry to invest €3 billion in retrofitting. This green economy approach would pay back a dividend. The potential exists to retrofit 500,000 homes. It is estimated that this would bring a return of €748 million per annum. When one considers that this would amount to almost €7.5 billion over ten years, it is clear that a great deal of money is involved. Money would also come back in again from that.
We believe the potential that exists in the wind industry must be harnessed in conjunction with local people. It would be preferable if the industry were owned by co-operatives or semi-State bodies, rather than foreign multinationals that would like to export cheap electricity from this country while we continue to import costly fossil fuels to fuel our homes. Rather than allowing these companies to export wind energy cheaply to England, we want it to be done the other way around. If we have surplus electricity, it will not be a problem if it is exported to England, Scotland, Wales or anybody else who will take it.
I ask the Government to consider the three positive proposals I have made. I believe we should always make positive proposals. Some of those on the Government benches who have spoken this evening have ranted. They should not do that. They should examine what we are actually saying. Much of the media ignored what we said when we launched our document last autumn. We are not making these proposals to score points off anybody. We are making an honest attempt to highlight some areas in which jobs can be created. We urge the Government to give serious consideration to our proposals. We did not pluck them out of the sky. We have examined best practice in Europe and across the globe. We have studied the ideas that have worked in other economies. We ask the Government to give them serious consideration.
The rural economy needs to be central to any jobs stimulus programme. Agriculture remains the most important indigenous sector of our economy. It has the potential to play a central role in future growth. It contributes over €20 billion to our national income. It accounts for 10% of exports. Crucially, the sector is far less dependent on imported inputs although it depends to a certain extent on imported fuel, the cost of which is unpredictable.
If we are to ensure the future viability of farming, it is crucial that the current negotiations on the reform of the farm payment scheme have a positive outcome. The current single farm payment system is clearly unsustainable and moneys are unfairly distributed. Less than 2% of farmers receive payments of €50,000 or more. Some of these payments are made to businesses rather than to active farmers. Over 40% of farmers receive €5,000. I hope the outcome of the negotiations will see a decisive shift in favour of the majority of Irish farmers.
The crisis caused by the discovery of horsemeat in burgers has brought attention to the need for a fair trading scheme for suppliers. While the crisis has reflected badly on the overall food sector, farmers are as much the victims as anyone else. They have had to deal with processors that apply downward pressure on the prices they are paid. Questions need to be asked about why any processor would need to import beef, or what is supposed to be beef, into this country. If the food industry is to fulfil its potential, it needs to be properly regulated in terms of traceability and content.
My colleague, Deputy Stanley, spoke about beet sector. The Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, is well acquainted with the beet sector in Mallow. He does not need to be reminded of the disgraceful behaviour of Fianna Fáil in government, with Mary Coughlan at the helm. Along with Greencore and the IFA leadership, it sold out a viable sector of the agriculture industry in questionable circumstances.
The loss to workers in the factories, as well as to the contractors and producers, is something we are still suffering today. My party supports the re-establishment of the sugar sector, which will include, as well as the production of sugar for food, the establishment of a bio-refinery plant to produce ethanol from beet. The estimated cost of the project is €350 million, with the potential to create up to 5,000 jobs.
In the broader economy, there needs to be a specific focus on the potential for enterprise and job creation in rural communities. To address the clear imbalance in job creation, regional and sub-regional job creation targets should be set out for Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and other enterprise support agencies. One of the reasons farmers are at a disadvantage with processors is the shift away from co-ops. The surrender of power to large agri-businesses needs to be reconsidered. There should be a proactive plan to establish co-ops and to aid job creation in rural communities, including the creation of tax incentives for co-ops that create employment in rural or disadvantaged areas. In addition, vacant premises belonging to Údarás na Gaeltachta, the IDA and other public bodies should be made available for co-op use.
One of the key barriers to the development of rural enterprise is the lack of high-speed broadband coverage. The ESB, Bord Gáis and Coillte could work together to roll out a comprehensive high-end broadband network. The ESB already owns 1,300 km of national fibre-optic network, Aurora Telecom is a Bord Gáis Enterprise company established in 2000 and operating specifically in fibre-optic network services, and Coillte has 220 mast sites and 100 new rural broadband sites.
We are obviously opposed to the sale of Coillte. Its resources should be used as part of a job creation programme and we should further develop its role in eco-tourism. With ten forest parks and over 150 recreation sites, Coillte is a leading provider of outdoor recreation in Ireland, with an estimated 18 million visits to lands under its management this year.
My own county of Kerry is an unemployment black spot, particularly the major town of Tralee. I listened aghast to Deputy Arthur Spring when he spoke about bringing two IDA visits to Kerry. It was a token appearance in the county which was brought about by pressure from my party, particularly our councillors and elected representatives, which tried to embarrass the IDA into doing something positive and constructive for our county. It has done nothing to bring any jobs into the county, not just this year or last year but over the past decade, during which time we hardly saw the IDA in the county. We need to decentralise the powers of the IDA to take into account the rural and disadvantaged areas of the west coast and the south west. It needs to be directed to go into those areas and to operate beyond a 50-mile radius of Dublin.
The Sinn Féin motion sets out the reality of the unemployment crisis in this State today. If it did nothing else, this motion would be valid because our unemployed citizens, of whom there are more than 430,000, are fast becoming the nameless, faceless people of our society. Unemployment is treated by many in the media and by the conservative political parties almost like the weather - something we can do nothing directly about. The only difference is that the weather is more talked about than unemployment.
The neoliberal economic outlook sees employment as a by-product of the main economic activity, which is to make as much money as cheaply as possible in the shortest possible time and, invariably, by smallest possible number of people. Our view is fundamentally different. We ask what is the purpose of economic activity, and we answer that it is for the greater good of all the citizens. It includes the social economy, the voluntary and community sector, State-provided public services and enterprises, and businesses from the craft workshop employing two people to the multinational plant employing 2,000.
The State has a role in all of these sectors, either directly or indirectly. Yet the Government speakers responding spoke as if this was not the case, and as if Sinn Féin had not presented alternative measures to address the unemployment crisis. This is most certainly not the case. Read the motion. Read our jobs plan. Look at the proposals made by the progressive voices who offer an alternative to the futile and sterile austerity strategy that is condemning a whole generation to unemployment and emigration.
Our motion identifies essential measures to reverse the unemployment crisis, including calls on the Government to establish a jobs stimulus fund of €13 billion, target investment towards projects that will create employment, develop infrastructure and enhance our competitiveness, abolish upward-only rent review clauses, address excessive utility, legal and insurance costs, introduce progressive commercial rates and combat cartels, develop schemes that will guarantee young people jobs, training or continued education, develop regional targets and budgets to promote job creation and tackle economic inequalities, and work with the Northern Executive to promote an all-island approach to skills, job creation and economic growth.
In responding to the motion, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, claimed the IDA had had its best years in a decade in the past two years. I have news for the Minister, news I have already brought to his attention. It is that the IDA was never seen much about the place in my home county of Monaghan during the so-called Celtic tiger or for decades before it, never mind during the current recession and jobs famine. The record shows that in 2012 the almighty IDA created a grand total of three jobs in County Monaghan and it lost ten, a net loss of seven. In the same year, Enterprise Ireland helped create 294 jobs and lost 142, a net gain of 152. That is based on the entrepreneurial spirit of the people of my home county.
Of course, these are pathetic figures by any measurement. It is, sadly, what we have come to expect in the Border counties, but especially in County Monaghan. Small as the figures are, I believe it is very instructive that there is such a contrast between the IDA and Enterprise Ireland figures, with no other county showing a greater disparity. Our county has long been characterised by the industriousness and enterprising spirit of its people, as reflected in the many small and medium-sized enterprises. Many of these have gone under during the recession, with lights in businesses going out one by one in the streets of towns and villages across the country and region. However, many survive, and they need support and encouragement. They have got precious little of it from this Government or previous Governments.
I want to conclude with this comment. I noted the remarks of the Minister of State, Deputy Perry. In his patronising and highly inaccurate speech, he spoke of Sinn Féin "coming down here". Well, I never. He trotted out the now usual coalition guff we have had to listen to here again this evening about our stewardship in the Executive in the North. Let me tell the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, and anybody else on the Government benches that Sinn Féin comes to this Chamber from the north, south, east and west of this country, and they can be damn sure we are here to stay.
There were more than 17,000 citizens on the live register in County Louth when the Government came into power. Now, two years later, there are 17,207. The only reason the figures are not worse is the high level of emigration. Some 87,000 citizens left this State last year. Any government which looks to emigration, particularly of its young people, as a solution is a government that is not worthy of office.
The last time citizens fled overseas in these numbers was after an Gorta Mór. In the last four years, this State has shed more jobs per capita than any other Western state since the Great Depression. That is the scale of the crisis. There are huge numbers of young people unemployed. The current rate is about 27.7%, which is one of the highest across the EU. As the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, must know from his constituency, these high levels of youth unemployment and emigration are having a devastating effect, particularly in rural Ireland.
Local towns, villages and townlands are unable to field full GAA teams because so many of our young people are playing football, camogie and hurling in Perth, Brisbane, Vancouver, Boston and London.
Sinn Féin and I have no hesitation in welcoming jobs announcements when they are made. There have been positive investments in Louth in recent times, among them PayPal and Ebay. These announcements are good news, particularly in the Dundalk region, and will hopefully draw the attention of other companies to the potential of Louth as a location for investment. However, when we look in more detail at the PayPal announcement, we see that as many as one half of the 1,000 jobs delivered will be filled overseas due to the language requirements. This Government needs to put in place a strategy that ensures we have the necessary skills for companies which want to create jobs here. It is also true that what has been announced thus far is only a drop in the ocean compared to what is required. Census figures show that County Louth is enduring the worst jobs crisis in decades with an unemployment level that is almost 5% higher than the State-wide average. Some of the many Government announcements never even come to fruition. In November 2012, the Minister of State with responsibility for the NewERA project announced that Nextag, a major network of shopping comparison websites, was to set up its new international headquarters in Drogheda, recruiting 125 people. In February, it was left to the IDA to announce that the promised investment would not be going ahead. The Government's approach to the jobs crisis has been to over-spin and under-deliver.
We were told in September 2011 that the strategic investment fund was to be a major plank of job creation. Yet now 18 months later, there has been no legislation to establish it. The Government's stimulus plan, if it ever does happen, is unambitious and provides for only a €2.25 billion stimulus. The plan does not even recognise the scale of the crisis.
Sinn Féin has put forward a fully costed jobs plan to deal with the need for growth, jobs retention, youth employment and the creation of new jobs. These are the kind of solutions the Government needs to start implementing and the kind of solutions that Labour - the party that claims to represent the interests of workers - should be proposing and implementing to create jobs and sustain existing jobs but Labour has lost its way. I commend the Sinn Féin motion to the Dáil and call upon Deputies, in particular the Minister for State because we cannot give up hope and because he is from a good lineage, to show an example by voting for this motion and against the Government amendment.
There is nothing worse than being patronised.
Yes there is - being unemployed.
This is particularly so since I have served in this House since 2007, longer than the Deputy yonder. I know I have earned my place here. Over the past two nights, there is no doubt that we have had an interesting and passionate debate and valid points have been made by both sides. Sometimes it turns a little bit raucous and many interventions have been quite rhetorical. In response to some points made by parties across the benches, if we are talking about the restoration of this economy and society, one must take cognisance of the fact that for the past decade or so, investment was primarily in construction, which fuelled the economy across many sectors. When that sector collapsed spectacularly along with the creation of the credit crisis, this Government when it came into power had to set out a new foundation and start investing in new areas so that one can upskill and retrain the very workers who have lost their jobs and now have to emigrate and about whom Sinn Féin is talking. One must put in place a set of new ideas that will begin new investments in a myriad of new sectors across the economy.
If we are to have a motion in this House about labour market activation, I would rather the parties opposite interrogated Springboard, Momentum, the ICT skills conversion courses, the redundant apprentice placement scheme and schemes of that nature. If there is a critique of those schemes, I would like to hear it. One either agrees that the schemes are necessary or one does not. If we do not have schemes of that nature, we will not provide opportunities for those people, mainly young men who relied on the construction sector, to get back into work.
In the two years that this Government has been in existence, we have put a myriad of schemes in place of which there has been a large take up. They have been quite successful, particularly JobBridge where a number of people have secured full-time jobs. I agree with some of the points made by Members opposite in respect of certain areas of Ireland where we have not had the foreign direct investment that is so necessary to sustain those areas. It is a pity I have only one minute left because I am only getting started.
I have offered Sinn Féin a chance to sit down with me and interrogate each of our policies, many of which I cannot articulate because of the limited time I have on this motion, and I think it will take me up on this offer. I have offered it a chance to go through and critique each one of those schemes as long as it is an objective critique and not rhetorical and empty so that we can work with parties opposite regardless of their hue to get us out of this crisis. Sinn Féin may score points but that is its prerogative as an Opposition party. This is the boxing ring and that is the job of Opposition but if it is going to interrogate the Government, it should not use empty rhetoric and at least come to us with something specific that critiques the policies we are putting forward. It must acknowledge that there has been real growth in the economy, that there has been an net increase in jobs, that we are continuing to win the type of investments that are necessary across a myriad of sectors and that we are investing in these sectors.
I attended an InterTradeIreland event last week. It is a North-South body created as a result of North-South relations. I met with a representative from Sinn Féin at that conference. There is an acknowledgement that if this island is to flourish, it must be on the basis of building cross-Border and bilateral links with our neighbours. The more we can embed that within the system and the more opportunities we can create through agencies like InterTradeIreland, the more we will raise the economic ship of this island. I apologise for the fact that I do not have enough time to respond to all the points raised.
I am sorry it is so confined.
When Fine Gael and the Labour Party entered government, they inherited an utter mess. It could be argued that they did very little even in opposition to articulate an alternative but they certainly did not create the mess of the property boom and bust. They were not at the reins when employment started to plummet. There would be an element of unfairness in blaming the Government for the mess created by Fianna Fáil. However, if I crash my car and bring it to someone who swears blind that they will fix it, charges me and takes a great deal of time doing little more than pretending to fix the problem, the mess becomes their fault.
The people were told that the Government would fix things, that there would be plenty of jobs, but there has been nothing of the sort. There have been plenty of cuts, with unemployment, emigration and platitudes. This is not solving the problem. I say to Fine Gael and the Labour Party that it is their problem and that they must deal with it. Try as they might, members of Fianna Fáil cannot make it any worse because they are on the Opposition benches. However, the Government parties have made it worse, with unfair budgetary attacks on low and middle income earners and those on social welfare.
Since the Government took office in February 2011, the unemployment figures in Finglas and Ballymun have remained relatively static, but that is as a result of mass emigration. Many football teams are struggling with numbers and have been forced to merge. Thankfully, Ballymun Kickhams have reached the all-Ireland final and I wish the team all the best. They will bring some hope to an area which, despite the very costly and protracted regeneration programme, remains a black spot for unemployment and an area of extreme deprivation in parts. A recent map drawn by the International Centre for Local and Regional Development shows that most of Ballymun and Finglas was suffering deprivation, while some areas suffered from extreme deprivation. That is not news to me. I have called on the Government to develop a jobs task force to focus on the most deprived areas, but these calls have fallen on deaf ears.
In some parts of Ballymun and Finglas unemployment is nearly three times the national average. An economy cannot be built on unemployment. We cannot build an economy with more than 400,000 people relying on social welfare payments to feed themselves. We certainly cannot build an economy on the export of our young people. Some 167,000 people have left Ireland since the new Government was formed and many thousands more have given up the hope the Government will do anything to help them. It has utterly failed to create jobs and most of the time it looks like this is not its focus. It seems much more at home in extending European debts and attacking the low-paid rather than getting people back to work by encouraging job creation.
The Government's plan has been high on rhetoric and low on job creation. Sinn Féin has produced numerous major plans to create jobs and kick-start the economy, a fact the Government, so uninterested in significant job creation, has ignored. It is disappointing but not surprising. Sinn Féin states job creation is the No. 1 priority. We have followed through on this commitment. At the end of 2012 we produced a plan to invest €13 billion in stimulating the economy, €100 million of which would save 15,000 jobs at risk. These are the businesses the Government has failed by imposing spiralling rates and the continuation of upward-only rent reviews. This plan would be funded by €5.8 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund, €1.534 billion from the European Investment Bank and €3 billion from the private pensions sector; it not cut €2.6 billion from capital projects as the Government plans to do in the next four years. According to the ESRI, the investment of €13 billion would create an average of 156,000 immediate and long-term jobs. Part of the plan includes a house building scheme to provide social housing which would create thousands of jobs with a costed investment of €1 billion. Instead, the Government spends more than €500 million a year on rent supplement and hailed social leasing as a panacea. This subsidised no one, except landlords, and it is unsustainable.
People are struggling. The Finglas town centre has been allowed to be run down and is a shadow of its former self. The post office in the centre of the village is under threat and even larger businesses and companies are fighting to hold on. I support the motion.
I refer to the Minister of State's charge about empty rhetoric. He should note that it is the people, our families and friends, voters and communities, who are being forced into unemployment and emigration. We take this issue very seriously and want to see the Government acting to promote job creation. On the point about cross-Border trade, IntertradeIreland is an outworking of the Good Friday Agreement, a cross-Border development body. However, there has been not one whit of development of cross-Border trade in recent years.
On Tuesday night I was in Dunshaughlin canvassing with my colleague, Darren O'Rourke. The overwhelming issues that came up, at door after door, were unemployment and emigration. In the two years the Government has been in office it is clear that the crisis engulfing the country has not lost its intensity. A total of 300,000 people remain unemployed, 60% of whom are now long-term unemployed. Youth unemployment is running at 27%. A total of 87,000 emigrated last year, the highest figure since the Famine period.
Is that the figure for the Twenty-six Counties or the Six Counties?
It is the figure for the Twenty-six Counties. According to the CSO, a total of 87,000 people emigrated from the Twenty-six Counties.
What is the figure for the Six Counties?
It is not even one fifth or one tenth of that number.
What is the difference? It is one and the same island.
I refer to child poverty rates in certain parts of Belfast.
Please continue with the debate.
I will deal with that point later. It has never been our contention that the Government has been doing nothing. The evidence shows that its policies and strategy are failing. Last year the Taoiseach promised the creation of 100,000 net new jobs by 2016. Last year the economy lost 12,800 full-time jobs, with an increase of 14,000 part-time jobs. The increase in the number of jobs was on the basis of an increase in the number of part-time jobs. At the current rate of job creation, it will take 83 years to achieve the Government's target of creating 100,000 jobs and 250 years to eradicate unemployment in the State. These are the statistics.
In many ways, the Minister of State has been given an impossible job.
He has been left on his own.
He has been given the responsibility of promoting job creation at a time when the Government is shedding public service jobs, left, right and centre. He is responsible for the creation of employment at a time when we are witnessing some of the deepest retrenchment policies in any western democracy. He has been left on Titanic with only a mop and a bucket. It is an impossible position.
That is a very dystopian version.
The Minister has talked about the importance of improving productivity. If he says job creation is his No. 1 goal, his productivity is poor, with a rate of 100 part-time jobs a month.
On the question of priorities, a total of €64 billion has been piled into the banks in recent years. In sharp contrast, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is operating on a reduced budget and capital investment budgets are cut, year on year. The SME sector cannot access funding from the banks. The recent ISME survey found that more than half of the applications for funding had been refused. For Sinn Féin and everyone else outside of the Government parties, the only measure of the success of Government policy is the creation of jobs. A total of 80% of all the jobs in the State are created in small and medium enterprises in the domestic economy. That is the real economy, the ignored economy. Sinn Féin's policies are designed to fix the real economy. The country is blighted with infrastructural inadequacies.
Fianna Fáil said that in 1977. I apologise to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. It is a sensitive subject.
I encourage the Deputies opposite to listen to the National Competitiveness Council which has stated there are severe infrastructural gaps which significantly reduce competitiveness. Six months ago my team and I met the troika which also acknowledged that there were infrastructural gaps. Fixing them would create sustainable efficiencies and enhance competitiveness in the future, making Ireland a better and more attractive place in which to do business and attract foreign direct investment. ln a counter-cyclical fashion, it would put people back at work.
I refer to those who were hit hardest by Fianna Fáil's mismanagement of the economy.
Sinn Féin has identified €13 billion of investment that could be accessed and put to productive use. When we met the troika, we asked if this money is available. The troika acknowledged that it is available. Government priorities and a lack of political will are the only things delaying matters. We identified feasible opportunity-costed projects such as those relating to broadband provision, transport infrastructure, sustainable energy, energy efficiency and regeneration and also school and health care capital development projects. These investments would create 150,000 jobs now.
Sinn Féin wants to tackle the major market distortions the Government has allowed to remain in place, including the use of upward-only rents, the continued existence of cartels and excessive utility, legal and rates costs. The Government is rolling up procurement contracts and thereby making it impossible for small companies to access new business. It has ignored Sinn Féin's policy on progressive commercial rates, which would make it easier for struggling businesses to survive. The Government is closing down the county enterprise sector as it currently exists and is lumping it in with local authorities. It is doing so against the wishes of every major organisation that represents small and medium enterprises.
The lack of action on upward-only rents is reprehensible and is delivering the killer blow to many retailers that are teetering on the edge. This week it is the turn of Monsoon Accessorize, which is about to close ten of its 18 stores. As a result, the majority of the company's 269 workers are under threat of losing their jobs. The Government must tackle this problem as a matter of urgency. The difficulty is that many of the Government's benefactors and backers are large landowners. It is they who represent the vested interest in this instance.
The Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Perry, who previously said upward-only rents are not leading to business closures, last night indicated that there is no such thing as forced emigration. Those who operate in the real economy are genuinely concerned about the Minister of State's ability to do his job. The level of disconnect between Deputy Perry, who has responsibility for 78% of the jobs market, and reality is absolutely staggering.
The Government has sought to create unsustainable competitive advantage through the erosion of worker's rights, the creation of inequality, the introduction of wage reductions and the maintenance of single-figure effective corporation tax rates. Sinn Féin is seeking sustainable competitive advantages in the areas of education, transport, broadband and energy efficiency and independence. Time is running out in respect of this matter. If the current rate continues to obtain, some 250,000 people will emigrate on this Government's watch. Unless this Administration changes direction, it is going to be too late.
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 72; Níl, 42.
Tá
- Barry, Tom.
- Breen, Pat.
- Butler, Ray.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Joe.
- Coffey, Paudie.
- Conaghan, Michael.
- Conlan, Seán.
- Connaughton, Paul J.
- Conway, Ciara.
- Coonan, Noel.
- Creed, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Deasy, John.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Deering, Pat.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Dowds, Robert.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frank.
- Ferris, Anne.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Harrington, Noel.
- Harris, Simon.
- Hayes, Tom.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Humphreys, Kevin.
- Keating, Derek.
- Kenny, Enda.
- Kenny, Seán.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lawlor, Anthony.
- Lynch, Ciarán.
- Lynch, Kathleen.
- Lyons, John.
- McCarthy, Michael.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Mathews, Peter.
- Mitchell, Olivia.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Mulherin, Michelle.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Murphy, Eoghan.
- Nash, Gerald.
- Neville, Dan.
- Nolan, Derek.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Reilly, Joe.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Phelan, Ann.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Spring, Arthur.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Stanton, David.
- Timmins, Billy.
- Tuffy, Joanna.
- Twomey, Liam.
- Wall, Jack.
- Walsh, Brian.
- White, Alex.
Níl
- Adams, Gerry.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, John.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Collins, Joan.
- Colreavy, Michael.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Ferris, Martin.
- Flanagan, Luke 'Ming'.
- Fleming, Tom.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Higgins, Joe.
- Kelleher, Billy.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McDonald, Mary Lou.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- McLellan, Sandra.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Brien, Jonathan.
- O'Sullivan, Maureen.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Ross, Shane.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Joe Carey and Emmet Stagg; Níl, Deputies Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Peadar Tóibín.
Amendment declared carried.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 73; Níl, 42.
Tá
- Barry, Tom.
- Breen, Pat.
- Butler, Ray.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Joe.
- Coffey, Paudie.
- Conaghan, Michael.
- Conlan, Seán.
- Connaughton, Paul J.
- Conway, Ciara.
- Coonan, Noel.
- Creed, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Deasy, John.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Deering, Pat.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Dowds, Robert.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frank.
- Ferris, Anne.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Harrington, Noel.
- Harris, Simon.
- Hayes, Tom.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Humphreys, Kevin.
- Keating, Derek.
- Kenny, Seán.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lawlor, Anthony.
- Lynch, Ciarán.
- Lynch, Kathleen.
- Lyons, John.
- McCarthy, Michael.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Mathews, Peter.
- Mitchell, Olivia.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Mulherin, Michelle.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Murphy, Eoghan.
- Nash, Gerald.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Neville, Dan.
- Nolan, Derek.
- Noonan, Michael.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Reilly, Joe.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Phelan, Ann.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Sherlock, Sean.
- Spring, Arthur.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Stanton, David.
- Timmins, Billy.
- Tuffy, Joanna.
- Twomey, Liam.
- Wall, Jack.
- Walsh, Brian.
- White, Alex.
Níl
- Adams, Gerry.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, John.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Collins, Joan.
- Colreavy, Michael.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Ferris, Martin.
- Flanagan, Luke 'Ming'.
- Fleming, Tom.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Higgins, Joe.
- Kelleher, Billy.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McDonald, Mary Lou.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- McLellan, Sandra.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Brien, Jonathan.
- O'Sullivan, Maureen.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Ross, Shane.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Joe Carey and Emmet Stagg; Níl, Deputies Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Peadar Tóibín.
Question declared carried.
