Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 2 October 2012
244. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Jobs; Enterprise and Innovation if he will indicate the most recently quoted reasons for job losses in the various regions throughout the country in each of the past three years to date; the action taken to address any such issues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42053/12]
View answerThe main reasons for job losses throughout the country have been well flagged and include a lack of consumer demand, difficulties accessing certain business finance, cost competitiveness issues and the impact of the global economic downturn on the Irish economy. Also, recent jobs losses which have occurred in the FDI sector in Ireland are largely the result of the continuing restructuring process that is on-going in Ireland and other developed economies, driven by competitive pressures and technological change. This can result in jobs at the lower end of the value added scale being either phased out completely or relocated to lower cost locations.
However, the most recent report from the National Competitiveness Council, “Ireland’s Competitiveness Scorecard 2012” , has pointed out that Ireland has become significantly more cost competitive. In terms of international measures, the World Economic Forum (WEF) rankings showed Ireland’s position improving two places to 27th last September, while the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook released in May showing Ireland’s headline position recovering back into the top 20 (up from 24th) and 8th out of the 24 EU countries featured.
Our current policies are geared to bring about a transformation of the Irish enterprise sector to ensure that we are in a position to avail of the opportunities that will arise as the global economy returns to growth.
The Action Plan for Jobs aims to transform the operating environment for business in order to support enterprise growth and job creation. The Government will achieve this objective by systematically removing obstacles to competitiveness, putting downward pressure on business costs, promoting innovation and trade, supporting new and existing businesses to develop and expand, and by deepening the impact of foreign direct investment in Ireland. The Government has identified, in the Action Plan, a number of key sectors where Ireland can gain competitive advantage in global markets. The Plan has also set a target of supporting the creation of 100,000 net new jobs over the period 2012 to 2016, with the longer term objective of having two million people at work by 2020 as part of our goal of making Ireland the best small country in which to do business.
We are reforming supports to small businesses, we have published the National Research Prioritisation Exercise, and we have launched the Succeed in Ireland scheme to help identify and encourage companies that might set up in Ireland.
In addition to the wide-range of programmes being delivered by the Enterprise Agencies, I am also focusing on other measures to address the challenge of access to finance being faced by SMEs. Last Thursday, I launched the new Microfinance Loan Fund and I will shortly be launching the Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme.
We are making solid progress on this crucially important agenda and have already put place a number of measures that will make a practical difference in making it easier for businesses to grow and create jobs. We will redouble our efforts in the coming year with the Action Plan for Jobs 2013 to ensure that we put in place policies that respond in a meaningful way to the many challenges faced by business on a daily basis.
