Yesterday evening I had begun to talk about the number of worthwhile initiatives in the budget which will help to develop and enhance a society based on the principles of social cohesion. I referred to the major improvement in the children's allowance which represents the greatest step forward in enhancing the welfare of children for many years. A family with four children will be in receipt of £1,400 per year and that is an important step towards providing a basic income to support all children.
The initiative taken by the Minister to provide funds to sustain a further 7,500 people on community employment schemes is also welcome. That will allow them become part of the workforce and obtain work experience. It will also allow for the provision of more community schemes which will be of considerable benefit in many parts of the country. The Minister is to be commended on the full and frank way he has acknowledged the major difficulties involved in solving the problem of the long-term unemployed. If we are to solve this problem, we must face up to it frankly.
In this regard I ask the Minister to act on the proposal in the National Economic and Social Forum Report No. 4 which refers to the potential to create approximately 10,000 full-time jobs in local authorities. That is a worthwhile proposal and the Minister should act on it as soon as possible. Those jobs would be suitable for many long-term unemployed people. This work is necessary and will greatly enhance our country. It will also provide a framework which will be of considerable benefit, particularly to the tourism industry. I hope we will see some move to implement this worthwhile proposal. The net cost to the State would be relatively small, approximately £5,000 per job and, for a total investment of perhaps £20 million or £30 million, it should be possible to make considerable progress in that area.
The introduction of free travel for pensioners both North and South is an imaginative proposal. It will be of great benefit to pensioners and I hope many of them will avail of the opportunity to travel to the North and many people in the North will travel to the South. I hope people from Dublin will travel to Belfast and vice versa for shopping and other leisure pursuits. Such cross-Border traffic can only be favourable for everyone.
The proposal to remove third level fees is very welcome. It will relieve a great burden on many families struggling to put their children through college.There is considerable scope for further improvement in maintenance costs, etc., but it is an important first step and I have no doubt it will be of great help to many families. It will also help to change attitudes about going to college. It will provide a support framework and encourage many people to attend college who may have been deterred from doing so in the past because of the expense involved.
The Minister's proposal on Third World charities is welcome. It is particularly appropriate in the year in which we begin to commemorate the Famine. One of the paradoxes of this country's position in providing funds for overseas aid is that, while we remain at the bottom of the league in terms of the proportion of gross national product contributed in comparison to other OECD countries, our contributions over the past number of years have tended to increase while the contributions of many of the developed countries have tended to decline. We appear to be moving contrary to the international trend and that is encouraging. I hope the changes made in the budget will encourage people to make a special effort to contribute to Third World charities and it is appropriate that they will now be in a position to nominate the charity or aid group they wish to support.
The initiative to provide £1,000 for people selling a ten year old car is welcome.This idea arose from the efforts of the Society of the Irish Motoring Industry and, in particular, Mr. Cyril McHugh, its chief executive. I am glad the Minister has taken action in this regard. To a large extent it also came from the lobbying by the SIMI last year which proposed that, if certain changes were made in the budget, it would generate increased revenue and would increase the levels of employment in the motor industry. That happened and is one reason we can feel confident this proposal will further improve the motor industry and will have significant benefits in terms of improving the environment.
At the conclusion of his contribution the Minister outlined his vision of this country 15 years from now. He was right to set high objectives and standards for our country to be reached by the year 2010. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious but it will not be easy to achieve these targets. We will need to reach very high standards if we are to close the gap between average income in this country and European member states. To achieve this we will have to invest in products and services that can be sold in Europe and elsewhere so that we are as good as the best in terms of the quality of our goods and services. That objective will be considerably enhanced by the levels of infrastructural investment which will be available to this country from the Structural Funds. However, we need to go much further, in particular we need greater investment in science and technology, research and development than in the past.
The level of investment in science and technology has been pitifully low. I do not understand how we hope to develop products and services without investing in science and technology to a degree comparable with our competitors. If we do not, we will not be in the race in terms of creating new products, changing production processes and so on. Science and technology has been treated very badly in the past decade. I believe there is an element in Irish society that is quite ignorant of the value and significance of science and technology and how it can be harnessed to advance the country. I know that the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Rabbitte, is responsible for the White Paper on Science and Technology and since he took up office he has sought to try to attract attention to the value of science and technology. He is beginning from a very low base and has a very steep hill to climb in terms of the levels of changes needed. I wish Deputy Rabbitte well but unless there is a considerable change in attitude among the Irish establishment it is difficult to see the levels of change that are needed coming about. However, they are essential if we are to attain the objectives the Minister for Finance set for the year 2000.
Considerable changes are needed in Irish industry. I believe most Irish industries are too small and it is necessary to consolidate, particularly in the food industries. If Irish food companies are to penetrate international markets, they have to attain a certain scale. Unless they are able to invest in marketing, research and development, infrastructure and capacity they will continue to supply commodities to the European and world markets but that is not the way forward. We have to be able to develop branded products so that the consumer will choose our products rather than being dependent on those who control what is sold in the outlets.
There is considerable scope for further investment in tourism, in areas of Dublin outside the city centre. There has been a reasonable level of effort and development in the city centre areas but there are attractions in the suburbs and the Dublin mountains. A sustained effort should be made to promote those attractions which to a large extent have been neglected. In the promotional literature on Dublin there is virtually no mention of the Dublin mountains or historic houses outside the city centre. I wish the new Minister well and hope he will do something about this.
The Minister for Finance is right to put the emphasis on enterprise and social cohesion because without social cohesion it would be very difficult to have enterprise and vice versa. We need to consider the best way forward. I wish there was greater anxiety to achieve co-operation and cohesion. To some degree Irish life has become preoccupied with cantankerous argumentative questions but that is not of much use in terms of making progress. Certainly there are questions but it is not so much that we want answers to the questions as solutions to the problems to which those questions relate. Instead of dissent we should be trying to generate harmony and consensus on how very serious problems can be resolved. The way forward is through the development of social cohesion and the promotion of enterprise.
I wish to comment on remarks made yesterday by the Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare, Deputy Durkan, when he spoke about the changing attitude and cognitive restructuring when people move from this side of the House to the other. The only advice I give to Members on both sides is to exercise an element of restraint. Given the unpredictable nature of politics it is not easy to be sure where Members will be in the next few months or in the next few years and caution could save people the embarrassment of having to eat their words in future.
The reality of political life is that leaks are part of what we are: it is a dull Monday now that we do not have a leak to fill up the newspapers because as we all know Monday is a bad day for news. The phenomenon has developed to the point at which the same old stuff can be releaked with minor adjustments. I think the former Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, was unfortunate to be caught up in the works as to some degree all he was doing was taking one step further what others were doing anyway, in other words acting in a cavalier fashion. That is not to seek to justify what happened.