Vol. 810 No. 2
1. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his views on the likely impact of the recent fall in exports on employment levels in the State; how exporting firms can be assisted in maintaining and winning new markets in the context of the ongoing eurozone economic weakness; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33643/13]
Ireland's open economy needs to have the export of goods and services at the heart of its economic strategy. The excessive reliance on property in the years up to the crisis was not only unsustainable but also undermined Ireland's competitiveness in export markets and caused a steady decline in our export market share. The economic transition we are now undertaking must be founded solidly on exporting, with the innovation and enterprise that is necessary to support it.
Employment in agency-supported exporting companies fell by more than 46,000 between 2007 and 2010. However, in the past two years this has been reversed and 22,000 net additional persons are now at work in those exporting companies. This has been built on strong performances by Irish and foreign-owned companies in export markets. The fall in exports recorded in the first quarter has broken this trend. My Department and agencies are closely monitoring the situation. It is clear there has not been a negative impact on employment during that first quarter. A number of factors are at work, such as the repricing of pharmaceutical products coming off patent and a downgrading of demand in many of our key trading partners. Other sources of data suggest that export growth can be sustained. It is clear, however, that we cannot take export growth for granted.
This underpins the importance of building up our position in export markets through initiatives in trade promotion and innovation. In this context, Enterprise Ireland has established a potential exporters division as a new way of engaging with Irish companies and providing them with mentoring, business advocacy support and financial support. A pilot initiative will also be commenced to focus on enabling companies to research, evaluate and plan market-entry strategies in new geographical markets. A total of 15 ministerial trade missions will take place in 2013 to existing and emerging markets. In addition, Enterprise Ireland's overseas offices will work with indigenous companies to help them realise new market opportunities. We are developing a series of initiatives to assist our manufacturing companies to step up their performance and penetrate new markets.
Export growth in 2011 was 5.4%, compared to 1.6% last year. That is substantially below expectations. Goods exports, which are dominated by the pharmaceutical sector, were down by almost 10% on the corresponding period last year. Services exports from Facebook and the other new industries in which we have invested so much effort dipped in the first three months for the first time in three years of growth.
The lack of demand in our primary markets is out of the Minister's direct control, but what plans are in place at EU level to deal with this issue? The so-called compact for growth and jobs was announced last year but we have seen no initiative to back it up in order to sustain key European markets. I highlighted the upcoming patent cliff for the pharmaceutical industry with the Minister approximately six months ago. We have invested considerably over many years in developing the pharmaceutical industry and this Government continues to invest in research and development. However, while investment in research and development brings long-term returns, it will not create the jobs that are needed now. What is being done in the coming months to identify any further impact of the patent cliff? While the Minister indicated that employment growth was not negatively affected in the first quarter, it will follow if we allow this to become a trend.
At EU level we put a strong emphasis on creating opportunities for growth in export markets during our Presidency. We successfully closed an agreement on a mandate for EU-US trade negotiations. These negotiations hold out the potential for increasing transatlantic trade between the EU and the US by 28%. If they can be concluded quickly they will offer good opportunities. Similarly, negotiations with Japan are ongoing and there are a number of opportunities in other free trade agreements.
Clearly, however, the EU has a broader base. There was a big emphasis on completing the Single Market and opening up freedom of access to public procurement and e-procurement, and to allow more exporting within the Community. The digital market is another area in which the EU sees opportunities for growth.
Domestically, the Deputy raised the issue of the pharmaceutical industry. The IDA and the Department have been acting strategically on this issue for quite some time by diversifying their packages. We are not simply dealing with the patent cliff and its impact but also seeing the growth of bio-pharma, which is compensating for areas of the sector that are in decline. The SSPC is a new €40 million research centre based in Limerick that is designed to support the process of diversification.
Can the Minister give an indication of the most up-to-date figures for the first six months of 2013? Has the trend worsened or has it stabilised? At what level is the Department engaged in examining these figures in order to stem the fall in value of the exports on which the Department's credibility has been based over the past two and a half years?
Both Enterprise Ireland and the IDA track investment, employment and volume flows. The trends are quite positive. We have encountered some difficulties in export markets but the April figures have shown recovery. There is a positive outlook among purchasing managers in respect of service prospects for the export markets. They are monitoring the trends closely but the signals are diverse. That only underlines the need to redouble our efforts to improve competitiveness in these markets and diversify into new and emerging markets. That is what the agencies are doing.
2. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the achievements made by his Department in increasing the number of young persons in employment. [33596/13]
The economic crisis has had a severe impact on young people in Ireland and the rest of the EU. Youth training, progression to employment and unemployment among young people continue to present a major challenge for Ireland, as they do for most member states. The aim of the Action Plan for Jobs is to develop a supportive environment for enterprise to create and sustain jobs. All of the measures in the action plan are designed to promote employment. The Pathways to Work scheme provides opportunities for young people through further education and employment services. A range of new initiatives are in place in Ireland to support young people looking for employment, such as JobsPlus, JobBridge, Springboard, Momentum and the ICT action plan, which are delivered by the Departments of Social Protection and Education and Skills.
My Department, supported by its agencies, actively encourages enterprises to engage with specialist programmes designed to support young people in accessing employment opportunities. The agencies' focus is primarily on supporting enterprise development and job creation rather than specific age-related interventions. However, many of our interventions are closely aligned to new technologies and institutes of higher education where young entrepreneurs play an important role. We are also reviewing entrepreneurship policy and will be investigating the scope for special programmes to help young people to consider starting a business as a career choice. We will also work with the Department of Education and Skills to help refocus apprenticeship as an alternative progression route into employment for school leavers.
Yesterday at committee I mentioned to the Minister that the issue of jobs was a central platform of the Government when it stood for election in 2011. On every occasion Fine Gael has gone to the country in the past five or six years, be it for an election or referendum, the issue of jobs has been central. However, we are still struggling to deal with the issue of the creation of jobs. The quarterly national household survey states clearly that since the Government has come to power, there has been a reduction of 24,000 young people in the workforce. This net reduction is a very stark figure. There is a net reduction of 35,000 young people in the labour force since the Government has come to power.
These figures reflect the migration patterns here, where one third of the 87,000 people who left our shores because of the lack of jobs in the State were people under the age of 25. Some 30% of the population in this age bracket in this State is unemployed, the fifth highest level in the eurozone. Every time we speak about this, the Minister speaks of an ecosytem of projects and plans that are being put into place, yet he is failing miserably on the the key measure, the creation of jobs. This is a policy choice of the Government. Now that the Government is half way through its term should it not face up to the lack of growth in jobs and change its policy?
Deputy Tóibín keeps repeating the myth that we are failing. In the past 12 months we have 20,000 additional people at work, net. If we remove from the equation the fact the public sector figures are declining, the private sector has expanded employment by 2,000 jobs per month. That is in sharp contrast to the economy we inherited where there was a loss of jobs of 7,000 per month. I recognise and it is clear that young people have been particularly adversely affected by the crash. The predominant share of the loss in employment occurred among young people. We must rebuild a sustainable economy and that is what we are doing. We are building an economy that is now supporting 20,000 additional jobs per year and we need to build further on that base.
I agree there is an unacceptably high level of youth unemployment. However, the 30% figure to which the Deputy referred refers to 2012. The most up to date figure in that regard is now 26.7%. There has been an improvement. The improvement may not be enough, but it is an improvement in youth unemployment. The Deputy is correct that young people are not participating as early as previously in the labour market. There is definitely a drop in participation rates. This reflects changes. People are staying on in education and this is clear from statistics. People are staying out of the labour market to build extra skills.
Unemployment stabilised ten months before the Government came into power, but it has remained at the bottom since. The Minister can pick a couple of months here and there and use those statistics to try to argue in favour of his policies. However, from 2011 to 2013, the period of the Government's Administration, there has been a major net fall in the level of young people employed and in the level of those in the workforce. We have seen nothing substantial in regard to trying to sort that out. In the context of the youth guarantee, we called in committee for the Minister to ensure young people in the State would be guaranteed a job and opportunities for education and training. What is the Minister doing to guarantee those jobs for the young people who, because of the Government's economic policies, remain unemployed in the State?
Sinn Féin seems to be of the view that it must talk down what is happening.
These are the facts and figures.
Deputy Tóibín is picking facts selectively. Some 20,000 more people are at work today than there were 12 months ago and there are many employment programmes designed to help young people get such jobs. JobBridge has been very successful and has dealt with 17,000 young people, resulting in a 60% employment take-up from the programme. Springboard has also been exceptionally successful, with 6,500 people retrained and another 6,500 being retrained this year. These 13,000 people have been very successful at accessing employment opportunities in expanding companies.
The programmes that have been put in place by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, are having an impact and are helping young people. That is why we are seeing a reduction in the rate of unemployment among young people. We are not at a point where we are complacent about the situation, but we are at a place where we see the interventions we are putting in place are working. We also have an economy that is globally creating more employment. We must continue to work on this approach. We are on a path that is showing results and we need to strengthen that.
Last week we introduced JobsPlus, a new initiative designed to help new opportunities to be opened up for people, particularly young people, and to help them progress from community employment programmes and others into real employment opportunities.
3. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if, in view of Ireland's ranking as an innovation follower by the EU innovation union scoreboard, he has identified the State's weaknesses in this area and the measures he proposes to achieve a higher ranking; if he specifically has identified Ireland's copyright and intellectual property regime as a major barrier to innovation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33468/13]
In the most recent innovation union scoreboard it was most encouraging to see Ireland retaining its position among those member states with above average performance in their research and innovation systems. This complements Ireland’s recent ranking of tenth in the Global Innovation Index 2013 which is also a very positive affirmation of our capabilities in this area. In the Innovation Union Scoreboard, Ireland is notably ranked first for economic effects due to its strong performance in employment in knowledge-intensive activities and third for human resources. Ireland also performs well above the EU 27 average for indicators such as population, with tertiary education, international scientific co-publications, and knowledge-intensive services exports. The average annual growth rate of Ireland’s performance, as calculated over the five-years 2008 to 2012, is positive at 0.7%, notwithstanding the economic difficulties experienced over the period. There is, of course, room for improvement in our performance and in the context of the development of a framework for monitoring the impact of public investment in science, technology and innovation developed as part of the research prioritisation exercise soon to be published, we have set a target for Ireland to increase its ranking from tenth to eighth place overall by 2017.
The scoreboard identifies a number of areas where Ireland’s performance is below the EU average, including venture capital; non-research and development expenditure by firms and sales of new-to-market and new-to-firm innovations. A number of initiatives are in place to strengthen Ireland’s innovation position generally and to address these specific weaknesses.
We recently launched a new €175 million seed and venture capital scheme, 2013-2018, aimed at providing additional funding for high-growth Irish companies with the potential to generate large amounts of additional export sales and grow jobs. The scheme is part of a series of funding mechanisms put in place by the Government to improve access to finance for companies, including the micro-finance fund, the development capital scheme, the credit guarantee scheme, the international start-up fund and innovation fund Ireland.
Implementation of the recommendations in the report of the research prioritisation steering group, which I chair, will see an enhanced focus on commercialisation of research and collaboration with enterprise.
The Minister of State has exceeded his time.
I will be able to answer the second half of the question, relating to copyright review, in the second tranche of the time allocated.
That is the bit I have been waiting for. Clearly we have many advantages, but the reason I raised this issue is because I believe we can exploit those advantages to a greater extent. When the Minister of State talks about young people and this particular area, he is getting it right. We now call young people digital natives, because they are so in tune with technology. The innovations mentioned by the Minister of State are one thing, but would he agree that creating a transparent, fair and cost effective copyright system would go a long way towards stimulating growth in areas that are currently untapped?
Will the Minister of State outline when the expert report is likely to be published? People should be fairly compensated if they have copyright, and I certainly would not argue that this should not be the case. However, it seems-----
The Deputy is over time.
It seems that because our legislation is now 13 years old, we are probably restricting our potential. Does the Minister of State agree?
The straight answer to that question is "Yes". I will read into the record the issue in regard to the independent copyright review committee. This committee was established in May 2011 and its aim is to examine the Irish copyright framework in order to identify areas that might be considered to create barriers to innovation and to make recommendations to resolve any problems identified, whether at national or EU level. I expect this committee will present its final report during this month.
I agree that we in this country must ensure we strike a balance to ensure that, where new business models are coming forward in this digital age - Deputy Catherine Murphy referred to the digitalised society - we create a legislative package that is in line with the times we live in. I agree the legislation is possibly outdated in that sense.
The copyright review is an independent process and is being done on a pro bono basis.
The Minister is over time.
I apologise but I want to answer the question. We want to ensure that if the recommendations of that independent review group state that changes to legislation are needed, we will have to look seriously at what those recommendations are in the first instance. I have not seen the report, although we are expecting it this month. It could be that Ireland wants to place itself ahead of the EU curve. It must be remembered that we are at present hindered in some respects by the EU's legislative framework on copyright.
I have to ask the Minister of State to conclude.
I would like to come back in if I can.
I am glad the Minister of State is open to the idea of Ireland becoming a first mover, given companies like Twitter and Facebook did not exist when our legislation was framed. Highly successful enterprises are at present partially based on consumption of pre-existing material. I reiterate that people need to be compensated for their intellectual capital but, at the same time, there are real opportunities here. The Minister of State might tell us if the report indicates that legislation is needed, and I would be surprised if it does not indicate that. When might we see that legislation?
I have not seen the report because it is an independent body and we have absolutely respected the fact it is independent. The terms of reference set out by the Government are to examine current national copyright legislation and identify any areas that are perceived to create barriers to innovation, and to identify solutions for removing these barriers and make recommendations as to how these solutions might be implemented through changes to national legislation. There might be a challenge where there is both EU legislation and national legislation, and where a national legislature like our own might want to move ahead of the EU position. On the other hand, it might transpire that national copyright legislation requires to be amended but cannot be amended, bearing in mind that Irish copyright legislation is bound by the EU's directives on copyright and related rights and other international obligations. The terms of reference also included making recommendations for changes to EU directives that will eliminate the barriers to innovation and optimise the balance between protecting creativity and promoting and facilitating innovation.
Everybody recognises the right to protection of copyright but there are so many new business models that have evolved in an online setting in this digital age we live in. Given the fact our own situation is such that we have so many "born on the Internet" companies present here in Ireland and employing thousands of people, the legislation has to be framed in a way that is reflective of the times we live in.
Again, the Minister of State is way over time. We must move to the next question.
4. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the remit of the recently established entrepreneurship forum; the reason he has not sought a better gender balance on the forum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33644/13]
The remit of the entrepreneurship forum, under the chairmanship of Mr. Seán O'Sullivan, is to provide advice on matters of policy in the area of entrepreneurship and to draft appropriate policy conclusions and recommendations which will support business start-ups, sustainable growth and long-term job creation. The forum will generate actions for the 2014 Action Plan for Jobs.
The membership of the forum is focused on a core group of active and dynamic business people who run highly successful businesses and have direct experience of the challenges facing entrepreneurs and can provide a relevant insight into the responses needed in the current economic environment. The forum also has the capacity to call in various stakeholders for specific thematic discussions where required. As stated in the press release announcing the membership on 27 June, “the initial membership will be supplemented at different meetings with representatives and experts from different areas of the economy that can help the work of the forum”. In this regard, at its first meeting Ms Paula Fitzsimons from GEM presented research on entrepreneurship and pointed to areas of potential and models of best practice.
I am keen to take advice and recommendations from people across the country who have actually taken the entrepreneurial route, as well as from experts in the area. That is why I held a public consultation inviting submissions from interested parties to support our work. More than 70 submissions were received from entrepreneurs, business organisations, members of the public and academics. These submissions will provide a starting point for the forum’s work.
The forum and my officials are committed to engaging actively with various representatives around the country in the coming months to obtain a variety of views and to discuss the key issues affecting entrepreneurship activity. I am confident that this process will ensure that the entrepreneurship policy statement which is being developed will contain recommendations which reflect the fullest spectrum of business interests in Ireland.
I welcome the raison d'être of the forum, which has the usual Andrex puppy feel of all of the Department's statements at the moment. The Minister described the seven people as "a core group of active and dynamic business people", yet he could only find one woman to fit that profile - there is only one woman out of seven people on the core group that will devise and drive entrepreneurship policy. The Minister is kidding me if he thinks there is only one woman who fits the profile of an active and dynamic business person. I suggest he looks around this Chamber or the other Chamber, where he could no doubt find seven such women.
We need to encourage entrepreneurship. In terms of the Minister's mission to recast the economy, as a nation we need to change completely our attitude to entrepreneurship and encourage and support it. We need to encourage women who are entrepreneurial by nature to get into the entrepreneurial space yet the Minister is telling me that among active and dynamic business people, he can only find one woman.
It is our intention to engage with thousands of women in this process. I could hardly be accused of discriminating against women in business because, for the first time, under my guidance we established a competitive start fund dedicated specifically to women entrepreneurs. I put €750,000 into that last year and it was massively oversubscribed. There are encouraging signs that women entrepreneurs, who were very much a minority, are becoming much more actively engaged.
What we sought to do was to move across a number of areas, such as retail, food and the entrepreneurial hub. We are going to develop each of those sections and there will be a particular dedication to looking at how we promote more women and young people in entrepreneurship, and how we spin more entrepreneurship out of our R&D investment. We are going to have a very thorough assessment of this area. I assure the Deputy we will have a very wide engagement through this process.
I have previously welcomed the fund. However, it was one of the lowest of the funds made available in Enterprise Ireland's suite last year. I want to see whether that fund will be launched again this year and, given the oversubscription to the fund, I want to know whether there will be a bigger budget.
Second, the fact that the fund was oversubscribed must give the Minister an indication - it certainly must give Enterprise Ireland an indication - of the strength of female entrepreneurship throughout the country. Surely the Minister, in assembling what he has described as a core group of active and dynamic business people, could have found three or four women, out of the total of seven, to drive this initiative. He has given no proper explanation for his failure to do so. It sends a very poor message in encouraging female entrepreneurship.
The Deputy seems to have misunderstood what I said. The purpose of this group is to set the ball rolling. We will be engaging with thousands of women involved in business.
The Minister described it as the core group.
It is not a board with any continuing role, rather it is a group tasked with starting the consultative process over a three month period. We will attempt in that very short timeframe to meet as many relevant persons as we can.
I will be providing additional money this year for women in entrepreneurship by way of a competitive start fund confined to women. This is an area in which we are confident of achieving success. I intend to develop the programme already in place, but I am also looking to new areas where we might perhaps learn from best practice in other countries. This will include examining what has been done in mentoring, for example, and the elements that have contributed to success elsewhere. We will also examine areas such as manufacturing where we are weak in entrepreneurship start-ups. We are looking at a wide range of areas of opportunity and I would welcome any submission from Deputies and others in this regard.
5. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the impact departmental policies are having on encouraging enterprises and creating employment in the current recession. [33597/13]
The policies being pursued by the Department are having a positive impact in supporting enterprises and job creation. Despite international and domestic difficulties, there was an annual increase in employment of 20,500 people, net of public sector reductions, in the first quarter of 2013. The unemployment rate decreased from 15% in the first quarter of 2012 to 13.7% in the first quarter of this year, the first time it has fallen below 14% for some years.
In 2012 Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland companies had their best performance in many years, with the agencies' clients creating nearly 10,000 additional jobs between them last year. This reflects the major effort that has gone into key programmes operated by them. These include competitive start funds for specific groups of very early stage entrepreneurs and high potential start-ups; a pilot initiative which will focus on enabling companies to research, evaluate and plan market entry strategies in new geographical markets; LEAN initiatives on enhancing productivity; and the introduction of a development capital fund scheme.
In regard to foreign direct investment, IDA Ireland has partnered with companies across five key areas to transform their businesses by way of training support, technology uplift, research and development, and product improvement. In addition, the Succeed in Ireland scheme was launched and there has been a greater focus on new and emerging companies and sectors.
The Action Plan for Jobs is a key vehicle for implementing specific and practical measures to support the enterprise sector. A number of substantial actions have been delivered through this process by my Department to enhance the business environment. These include the introduction of measures to improve access to finance for businesses such as the micro-enterprise loan fund, the temporary credit guarantee scheme, the development capital scheme and the seed and venture capital scheme. New structures have been put in place in Enterprise Ireland to assist companies seeking to grow their exports. Meanwhile, the first of the new local enterprise offices was launched in May, heralding the start of a radical reform of the system of supports for micro and small enterprises. There has been a stronger focusing of our research investment through the work of the research prioritisation group. In addition, we have been looking at sectors such as manufacturing, construction, retail and the green economy, among others, to see how best they can be developed.
Progress reports on the delivery of the full range of measures under the Action Plan for Jobs are published on my Department's website on a quarterly basis.
I meet skilled and experienced people on a daily basis who, through no fault of their own, find themselves unemployed. In many cases, their self-worth has been crushed. I meet families who are struggling in extremely difficult situations, trying to pay the electricity and heating bills and keep the roof over their heads. I meet people who tell me, through their tears, about the children and grandchildren they have lost to Australia, Canada and elsewhere. It is certainly not my intention to talk down the economy, but the people in question must be represented in this Chamber.
We must face reality. In the two and a half years since the Government came to power 167,000 people have emigrated and 10,700 full-time jobs have been lost. The 3,800 new jobs created correlate exactly with the number of part-time posts. Unemployment has stabilised, but that process had already begun before the Government came to power. Some 30,000 workers have been under-employed during its tenure. At the same time, the results for the past two quarters show we are back in recession. The point I am trying to make is that despite the hollow ecosystem of initiatives and jobs, there is no focus on the real economy which is not growing. A myriad of businesses are hamstrung by an inability to access credit and paralysed by the lack of demand and low expectations in the economy. The issues over which the Minister has some control such as the availability of credit, utility costs and rental costs are not being properly addressed. There has been no effort whatsoever to stimulate the economy sufficiently to create jobs. We need a growth level of 2% for jobs to be created, but there is no growth.
The objective of the Government is very clear in the actions of the Minister and his team, which have been very effective. For the first time since 2008, 20,500 jobs have been created in a single quarter, net of public sector reductions. Some 1.8 million people are at work. Exports from companies supported by Enterprise Ireland are worth €16 billion. This is worth €30 billion to the economy, €14 billion to the domestic economy and €19 billion in GDP. Jobs are being created every day, but many of them require specialised skills. This week I met representatives of a company which has been forced to recruit people from other jurisdictions because of the lack of a skills base here among domestic workers. People from eastern Europe are being recruited to do a specific job, for which particular qualifications or experience are required. One only has to look at the job vacancies in newspapers to see that a major upskilling effort is required, a task which is being met by the third level colleges. We are focusing on this through collaboration with the universities and the institutes of technology.
Is the Minister of State advising the 400,000 people on the live register to buy the newspaper?
That is not what I am saying. I am pointing to the opportunities available within the economy.
We have introduced a range of initiatives to assist business, including the micro-finance fund, the loan guarantee scheme and the credit guarantee scheme. A sum of €4 billion has been targeted for bank lending. We are constantly meeting the financial institutions to discuss how people can be facilitated to access finance. We are engaged in an uphill recovery programme and it is a very difficult job. There is no doubt, however, that progress is being made. This week I met several business people in Limerick who are confident the situation is stabilising. Notwithstanding the challenges that remain, jobs are being created in the economy.
The Government can choose to focus on a month here or there or some other time span to bolster its argument that change is happening and that we have turned the corner. In reality, however, when one looks at the two and a half year period in which the Government has been in office, the trend is clear. The figures are also clear when one examines initiatives such as the credit guarantee scheme. The Minister of State knows they have not been a success.
The Government has set itself a target of creating 100,000 net new jobs, but it has achieved only 3,800 to date. If it is to reach that threshold of 100,000, it will have to create 32,000 net new jobs every year until the end of its term. What are the plans it intends to put in place to achieve job creation levels of 32,000 per year for the next three years?
The Government has a very clear plan, which is more than can be said for the Deputy's party. We are not cherry-picking figures but simply stating the facts. Some 20,500 jobs were created in one quarter, net of public sector reductions. The opportunities are available, despite the difficulties facing the economy. We have a clear plan of action. The Action Plan for Jobs is in place and we have reduced red tape for businesses.
The Minister of State is being very selective in what he chooses to highlight.
Deputy Tóibín can be very selective too in what he picks on. Deputy Tóibín should get his facts clear. Some 20,500 net jobs have been created in the private sector, net of public sector jobs.
What timescale is the Government working to?
Enterprise Ireland, with €16 billion, is at the highest ever and its turnover in Ireland is €30 billion.
Some 3,000 jobs have been created in two years.
An initiative announced by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, of giving €10,000 in respect of long-term unemployed people-----
There are some 2,000 places.
That is under review.
The Minister of State is over time.
The size of the problem far exceeds the efforts of the Government.
We look at the glass being half-full, while Deputy Tóibín is very selective in what he picks on. We look at the reality and we talk to business people.
It is only lately the Government started looking at it that way.
We meet business people on the ground and we are not being selective like Deputy Tóibín.
