I welcome the Minister of State. The single biggest challenge facing Ireland in 2010 is to create jobs and reduce unemployment. Urgent action is required to improve our competitiveness in order to support job creation and export growth. Speaking on 14 January at the launch of a report, Ireland's Competitive Challenge — Creating a Better Future, Dr. Don Thornhill, chairman of the National Competitiveness Council, said speedy implementation of the priority actions identified in the report is as fundamental to Ireland's future as the steps being taken to address the banking crisis and arrest the decline in public finances.
Improving our export performance and raising productivity across all areas of the economy, including local and international trading sectors and the public services, are the only sustainable strategies for securing long-term prosperity for our people, reducing unemployment and sustaining the standard of living. Although Ireland's competitiveness improved during 2009, to a great extent this was due to the sharpness of the recession rather than to competitive advantages arising from structural change. The priority recommendation in the report by the National Competitiveness Council puts strong emphasis on skilled development which is critical in supporting the competitiveness of existing firms by enhancing their capabilities and increasing productivity growth.
We must reduce the cost of doing business. It must fall relative to that of our trading partners. The priority actions report noted that limited competition and locally traded sectors of the economy, especially in the professions, have serious implications for the cost of doing business in Ireland. We need to drive competition in these sectors and in the legal and accountancy professions and consultancy groups especially with regard to the effective implementation of the competitiveness council's recommendations.
High utility costs that have been in place for years are damaging the competitiveness of exporting sectors such as food, information technology, hardware and engineering industries. Recent energy price reductions were necessary but have not been sufficient. Further actions are required, such as phasing out price supports for renewable energy as the technology matures and deployment increases.
My next point has been raised an unbelievable number of times and still nothing has happened. Careful consideration needs to be given to freezing and, where possible, reducing local authority commercial rates. Every submission made to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has included this issue. We must prioritise infrastructural investment to support enterprise. Reducing capital expenditure to maintain current expenditure will not help our long-term competitiveness.
I draw attention to the construction industry. Total employment in the industry, both direct and indirect, will fall to approximately 100,000 by the end of 2010, a reduction from 400,000 in 2007. This is a severe blow. Output is set to fall below €10 billion in 2010. In 2007 the industry earned beyond what would be considered normal, namely, €38,500,000. This growth was not sustainable, of course, and was unrealistic. However, there is a crisis in the construction industry now. We are losing skills and professions. Architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, technicians and tradespeople are being lost. We are losing sight of what will happen when our economy recovers in the next two years as the world economy improves. There is no doubt that will happen but we are missing the boat by not maintaining investment in capital expenditure. There is no doubt about the improvement that took place in our roads infrastructure during the past ten years. It is a wonderful sight to behold and a pleasure to drive on. With tendering costs of 25% and the very competitive pricing now available it is a shame not to avail of these. For every worker who loses a job in construction it costs us as much in social welfare payments as the salary that was earned.
I have spoken non-stop on the Order of Business about job creation and employment. The number one priority is to get the banks to free up money to companies. The chicanery and irresponsibility of the banks in this country and their attitude to small and medium-sized businesses are immoral. In time a story will be told about their rough manner and the brutality of their actions towards such companies who employ people.
The good news yesterday was that the Tánaiste launched the Horizon 2020 programme. She made the point that foreign direct investment will continue to be very important to us.
I have raised one point on numerous occasions in this House. I attended the Craig Barrett lecture in the Mansion House. He pointed that the PISA yardstick that measures standards of mathematics shows ours to be only average. It has fallen to average. When Intel came to this country 20 years ago the knowledge of our graduates and young people was much higher than that of the same group today. The more we move towards the technology industries of the future the more mathematics and cognitive thinking will be needed as the base and ground work of these industries. Unfortunately, one can get great points to enter university by learning things off by heart. It takes more effort to study mathematics and science and those points are harder to get. We have a fundamental problem regarding the next generation of industries, nano-technology. The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy O'Keeffe, is addressing this issue. He has been lobbied by multinational companies which have put billions of euro of investment into this country. It is far more efficient for them to reinvest in Ireland rather than having to go to a new country where the standard of education in mathematics is much higher. The bottom line is that cognitive thinking, entrepreneurship and risk-taking are the skills of the future. If Ireland wants to compete, we have to be as good as our competitors in China, India, Israel and Singapore. Europe has lost the game whereas they are the empires of the future.