Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 2 Jun 2016

Vol. 911 No. 3

Delivering Sustainable Full Employment: Statements

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor)

I welcome the opportunity to address the House on the important issue of delivering sustainable full employment and getting people back to work. A Programme for a Partnership Government is ambitious and it is our ambition to help to create 200,000 additional jobs by 2020, including 135,000 jobs outside Dublin. We also want to reduce the unemployment rate to 6% and our target this year is to add 50,000 new jobs. We have made a good start, with more than 15,000 new jobs being created in the first three months of 2016.

In early 2012 the first Action Plan for Jobs was launched. At the time the unemployment rate was above 15%. In May this year it fell to 7.8%. Some 155,000 more people are in employment today than in 2012. This surpasses the original target of having an extra 100,000 people at work by the end of 2016. The Government is committed to sustaining this rate of job creation and delivering sustainable full employment by 2020.

I propose to address the Action Plan for Jobs, one of the Government's key instruments to support job creation. The objective has been to rebuild the economy based on enterprise, talent, innovation and exports. The Action Plan for Jobs is working and employment continues to grow strongly. In the year to the end of March 2016 it grew in 12 of the 14 economic sectors, with the largest employment increases recorded in the tourism and hospitality sectors, where it increased by 10,500 jobs; construction where it increased by 9,500 jobs; and administrative and support service activities, where it increased by 6,400 jobs. These sectors were hard hit by the recession and the new jobs being created are across all skill and qualification levels.

The enterprise agencies of my Department, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the local enterprise offices or LEOs, have been pivotal in addressing the jobs challenge in recent years. Employment in agency-supported companies increased by 22,000 in 2015 and 192,000 people are now employed directly in Enterprise Ireland-supported companies. Enterprise Ireland also supports approximately 200,000 indirect jobs in the wider economy. These jobs are supported by purchases of raw materials and services in the local economy by exporting firms. Total direct and indirect employment in Enterprise lreland-supported companies accounts for one in every five jobs in Ireland. IDA Ireland secured 213 new investments in 2015 and more than 187,000 people are now directly employed by client companies.

As I indicated, the numbers of people out of work have declined considerably since the peak in 2012. However, unemployment remains too high, particularly among young people. In May 2016 the rate of youth unemployment stood at 15%, down from 20.8% in 2015. This figure remains too high and the Government will focus on reducing it further.

The number of people who are long-term unemployed also declined in the past year, from 127,000 to 100,000, although this is still 100,000 too many. While the reduction of 27,000 is welcome, I am conscious that we must continue to focus our efforts on reducing the rate of long-term unemployment further.

Women are more likely to work part time than men, with women accounting for two thirds of part-time workers. In some cases, working part time is by choice and it is positive that these flexible opportunities are available. There are also people working part time who would work additional hours if available. Overall, part-time under-employment is falling, having declined by 13.7% in the year to March 2016. Under-employment among women fell by 15.1% in the past year. A further challenge is ensuring more women participate in the labour market. The overall participation rate in the labour force is 60%. For men, it is 67% and for women, 53%.

Stimulating regional growth is vital. In 2015 we developed eight regional action plans for jobs to ensure the recovery would be felt in every region. We set up a regional implementation committee to oversee and drive each plan. Membership is drawn from industry, local authorities, the enterprise agencies, the education sector and other key local and regional stakeholders. The overall target is to increase employment in each region by between 10% and 15% by 2020. We also want to reduce each region's unemployment rate to within 1% of the State average. Unemployment has declined significantly in all regions since 2012. According to the latest data from the Central Statistics Office, the mid-east region had the lowest unemployment rate, at 5.9%. The fastest growing regions in terms of employment in the past year were Dublin, the mid-west and the midlands.

In 2015 almost two thirds of the new jobs created by Enterprise Ireland clients and more than half of the jobs in IDA Ireland-supported companies were outside Dublin. I want to give the message loud and clear that 20,000 jobs created in the past year were outside Dublin. Enterprise Ireland-supported companies created an additional 6,500 jobs outside Dublin last year. In 2015 the local enterprise offices delivered another strong performance, supporting the creation of over 3,500 new jobs. They also provided mentoring for 8,000 participants and training courses for 27,000 participants.

Initiatives such as the regional Action Plans for Jobs, the 2016 action plan and the ongoing work of Enterprise Iceland, IDA Ireland and local enterprise offices are an important part of our efforts to create jobs across the country. I will continue to roll out competitive regional funding initiatives that will deliver on the potential of local and regional strengths. The first progress reports on the implementation of the regional action plans will be completed and published in the second half of the year.

Innovation is at the heart of Government policy on enterprise. It plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining employment and attracting, developing and nurturing business. Our strategy, Innovation 2020, sets out our vision to become a global innovation leader.

We want to see greater numbers of enterprises engaging in research and development and more enterprises progressing to a point where innovation is embedded as a key part of their business model. I will work with the Minister of State, Deputy John Halligan, to ensure that the Department's investments in research and development, through Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, are central to delivering jobs. SFI invests €160 million each year.

Getting people back to work is a key priority. The Action Plan for Jobs complements the Government's Pathways to Work strategy. The pathways strategy sets out actions to be taken in support of those who are currently unemployed. My Department and its agencies work primarily to create jobs but also to combat and reduce unemployment. The enterprise agencies protocol, overseen by my Department, ensures Government offices at local and regional level work together to maximise live register recruitment into enterprise agency client companies. This means that if there is a jobs announcement, the IDA representative, for example, will be the contact for the local Intreo office. They will work together to connect clients from the live register with job opportunities. Local enterprise offices, Enterprise Ireland and Údarás na Gaeltachta are all connected through this protocol, sharing best practices in a joined-up approach to job placement.

We will continue to work with colleagues across Government to ensure that all of those who want a job are equipped with the skills required. We will continue to focus on initiatives to help our young people to meet their potential. We will provide a diverse range of choices on leaving secondary education, a strategy that is regarded as a key success factor in countries with low levels of youth unemployment. Countries such as Austria and Germany provide a wide range of options from conventional higher education routes to high quality apprenticeships. The new apprenticeship programme provides new opportunities for our young people to find rewarding careers. It covers a wide range of sectors, such as manufacturing and engineering, tourism and sport, financial services, transport distribution and logistics.

The Action Plan for Jobs is working and we are making good progress towards our goal of deliverable, sustainable full employment. However, we cannot be complacent. We remain vulnerable to external shocks, such as Brexit, increases in oil prices and exchange rate movement. We must continue to work towards building a sustainable economy with sustainable jobs. This is essential to generate the resources we need to provide better public services. Urban and rural communities that have not yet felt the benefits of our strengthening economy will be prioritised and enabled to realise their potential.

I have asked my Department to initiate the process to develop the 2017 Action Plan for Jobs. This will start in June. We will consult widely with external stakeholders over the coming months to gather the best ideas for job creation. I ask colleagues across the Chamber to bring any plans or good ideas from their local areas to me. While significant progress has been made, we will maintain our focus on getting people back to work. My priority is to deliver a business environment which enhances our competitiveness and supports sustainable enterprise and employment growth in all regions of Ireland.

Deputy Niall Collins

I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on jobs - an issue that is relevant to everybody in the country, employed or unemployed, business people and people trying to promote business.

The narrative in regard to job creation must change a little. We hear a lot of spin from government and claims about job creation but we must ensure the narrative around the issue recognises that jobs are created by entrepreneurs and business people, not the Government. The Government however does create the conditions that allow job creation to happen. It is wrong of the Government to take ownership of actions in terms of job creation when it is the people who take the risk in expanding their businesses who create the jobs and pay the wages of employees.

I welcome the fact that our economy is improving and that the trend is in the right direction but there are still more than 300,000 people on the live register and there is little comfort for the Government in that. The perfect economic storm we experienced must be seen as the backdrop to this issue. The economy has benefited from low interest rates, a favourable euro currency exchange rate with sterling and the dollar and historically low energy importation costs. However, we face stark challenges in regard to retaining existing jobs and attracting the establishment of businesses in the future. These challenges range from Brexit, declining competitiveness, infrastructure deficits, rising business costs, failed activation schemes, for example, JobBridge, to skills shortages. Previous governments have neglected job creation in the regions. We know that and the figures prove it. I represent the mid-west region and one only needs to talk to people in my neck of the woods to be made aware of the position. The figures issued by the CSO in recent days show this to be true.

The two-tier recovery has taken hold and has concentrated growth disproportionately. Fianna Fáil believes in a country where decent, hard working people can thrive, not just survive. We must recognise that people who are working must be able to thrive rather than just work to get by. While the latest CSO job figures are welcome, with unemployment under 8% nationally, challenges still exist regarding the type of jobs we have. We had debate in this House over the past two nights on many of the challenges that exist - zero-hour contracts, minimum wage and an acceptable living wage. It is unacceptable that more than a fifth, 21%, of Irish people live in jobless households. In some households, there is generational joblessness. The number of jobless households is almost double the EU average. The underlying precariousness of work must be addressed to deliver decent jobs with decent pay to enable workers to meet weekly financial commitments. This need too was underlined in debate over the past nights. People on zero-hour contracts cannot make any life plans and cannot enter any financial commitments.

Fianna Fáil has consistently put forward a suite of measures to encourage entrepreneurship and domestic job creation, including a proposal for the most competitive entrepreneur CGT rate of any party and a proposal to end the tax inequity faced by the self-employed. SMEs continue to be choked for credit and there is a serious problem in that regard. Fianna Fáil has been relentless in advocating the creation of a State enterprise bank, by licensing the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland to lend directly to businesses.

That is something we will continue to pursue.

I want to mention the CSO quarterly national household survey, because it has some very stark figures. In the year to Q1 of 2016 there was a broad jobless rate of about 17% of the Irish work force, which includes the official number of unemployed at 179,500, in addition to the almost 80,000 persons on public activation schemes and 99,000 part-time workers who would like to have full-time work and who are categorised as underemployed. This brings the jobless rate up to 17%, a very high number which we need to keep in mind.

There is a two-tier recovery, with differences between the greater Dublin area and the east coast by comparison with the other regions. There has been a clear failure of Government policy in the context of trying to strike a balance between regions. Some 50% of all jobs created in the 12 months to Q4 of 2015 were in Dublin and it is worrying that three regions out of eight nationally, namely, the midlands, the south east and the south west, saw their unemployment rate increase in Q1 of 2016 compared to the previous quarter. While unemployment rates are lowest in the capital and the greater Dublin area, hovering between 6% and 7%, the rate is significantly higher in other regions, at 11.6% in the midlands, 12.5% in the south east and 12.2% in the west.

Some 50% of all IDA site visits from 2012-15 were in Dublin and 48.7% of total IDA jobs in 2014 were in Dublin and the eastern region. The midlands, north east and north west have been almost ignored, with the number of IDA jobs there accounting for just 2.3%, 2.5% and 3% of the total. The two-tier recovery is impacted by a lack of proper visits to those areas. Some 43% of Irish GDP is generated in Dublin. London can be compared to Dublin, being a capital city, but it accounts for 20% of the UK's total GDP. The Irish concentration on our capital is double this figure.

The long-term unemployed are a huge challenge. When we had full employment in this country there was still a significant cohort of people who were long-term unemployed. Some 100,600 citizens remain long-term unemployed, amounting to 54% of total unemployment, which is a huge challenge that has to be met.

A huge challenge is also coming our way in the shape of Brexit and we need a more active campaign to encourage Irish people living in Britain and British people living in this country to register to vote, which they can do before 7 June in time for the polling date of 23 June. The potential downside of Brexit is enormous. A report from George Lee yesterday dealt with the impact on farming and I am hearing this in my clinics, as we all are. Some people are trying to spin the idea that Ireland can benefit from more foreign direct investment and relocations from the city of London into this country but this is not supported by the ESRI and others. We have a high FDI concentration in this country but it does not flow into the studies relating to this issue. We can only lose if Brexit happens and the consequences for our farming and export industries are enormous.

We have an infrastructure deficit. The previous Government announced a capital investment programme which was largely inadequate in certain regions. In my own region and in my constituency, for example, a motorway from Limerick to Cork is hugely necessary and a motorway from Limerick to Waterford, to connect the mid-west region to Waterford and on to Rosslare, is also hugely important. There are many examples of deficits in our infrastructure which will severely hamper job creation.

I want to refer finally about activation schemes. The JobBridge scheme is to be scrapped and Fianna Fáil believes it should be replaced with a new model, which would offer better terms and conditions for interns seeking experience in the workplace. JobBridge has been exploitative and has been abused by too many. Whatever scheme is introduced it will have to take account of the downside experiences of the JobBridge scheme so that people are given the opportunity to get on the jobs ladder and better themselves.

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan

I welcome the opportunity to participate in what I hope will be the first of many debates on jobs, and particularly sustainable jobs. Any discussion about sustainable jobs must include a discussion of what constitutes a sustainable labour market. We know the labour market is crucial in terms of creating sustainable communities and in terms of the economic, social, and cultural well being of the wider society.

According to data from the most recent quarterly national household survey for 2016, employment has increased by 2.4% in the year to the first quarter for 2016, which is welcome. This was an increase in total employment of almost 47,000 jobs, 31,000 of which were full-time and 16,300 part-time. This is an increase of 2.1% in full-time employment and of almost 4% of those in part-time jobs. While I welcome the increase in the numbers of people at work I do so cautiously. The Irish labour market is characterised by major problems with low pay, the proliferation of precarious work and increasing industrial unrest. Ireland now has the dubious distinction of having the second highest number of low-paid workers in the OECD. Contrary to the Government spin on the figures quoted, I find the high rate of increase in part-time jobs very worrying. I say this because all of the research shows that part-time workers make up a high percentage of those who are concentrated in low-paid employment sectors. They are also more vulnerable to exploitation, precariousness, low pay and what are termed "if and when" contracts.

Low pay and a weak architecture in respect of workers' rights are bad for workers, bad for the economy, bad for communities and bad for society. Low pay puts enormous pressure on the State in terms of social transfers with the result that the State ends up supplementing the pay of vulnerable workers. In 2015 alone, the State spent a record €350 million on subsidising the income of thousands of families in low-paid work. The rapid rise in workers in receipt of family income supplement and other social transfers, at approximately 60% in recent years, is essentially topping up employers' profit margins and highlights the extent to which workers and their families are at risk of poverty. This transfer of wealth from the State is in essence reproducing, year in and year out, huge profits for large companies who see nothing wrong with bullying and exploiting their workforces. In the retail sector Dunnes Stores tops the league table for the company with the highest number of workers in receipt of FIS. Unsurprisingly, Tesco, which is currently trying its best to rid itself of trade unions, is close behind in third position. Both companies are hugely profitable and could well afford to pay all their workers a decent wage.

Likewise in the hospitality sector, which avails of the Government’s 9% rate of VAT, we have a workforce that is overwhelmingly low paid and exposed to exploitation. This sector is now showing a significant increase in profits while the reduced VAT rate continues to cost the Exchequer hundreds of millions of euro in lost revenue each year, yet employer representatives from this sector have repeatedly refused to engage with trade unions representing workers or with the WRC around the reinstatement of employment contract orders. Surely, in light of the reduced rate of VAT gifted to the sector, the Government has a responsibility to make the ongoing receipt of this rate conditional on the sector engaging with the WRC. Workers in the sector are entitled to decent pay and working conditions and I urge the Minister to raise this issue at Cabinet discussions on the forthcoming budget.

When we talk about low pay, we must note the gender pay gap. Women represent 60% of those in low-paid employment, by which I mean employees who fall below an hourly threshold of €11.45. Research shows that women employees carry a 30% risk of low pay. This means that three in ten female employees are low paid. We know that low-paid female workers feature across all age groups but are more concentrated under the age of 40 years. The vast majority of women on low pay - 60% - are concentrated in just three sectors of employment: retail, which accounts for 24% of low-paid women; the accommodation and food sector, which accounts for 20%; and the health and social work sector, which accounts for 18%. It is interesting to note that the risk of being on low hourly pay rates declines as an employee's weekly hours increase. For example, just over half - 53% - of women working between one and 19 hours per week earn less than €11.45 per hour. One in two female employees on a temporary contract is on low pay, whereas just one in four women on a permanent contract is on low pay. This issue is highly important, given that the most recent data show the average earnings of low-paid female employees represent 55% of their household income. Overall, 34% of low-paid women provide the total earnings of their households, while 28% provide less than one quarter of household income. The concentration of low-paid female main earners in the bottom half of the income distribution ladder is of particular concern from a household income and living standards perspective. It has been noted that when public policy objectives in the labour market regulation area are extended beyond hourly rates of pay to include workers' living standards, the results point towards roles for various policy levers, including earnings but also, most importantly, access to decent public services, especially in the areas of health care, housing, affordable public transport and publicly supported child care.

I remind the Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, the first female Minister for jobs since the foundation of the State, that as we celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rising this year, she is following in the footsteps of Constance Markievicz who served as Minister for Labour. I would like to know what measures the Minister intends to introduce to deal with the issue of low pay among women and the gender pay gap. If low wages, low tax rates and low levels of labour protection were central to competitiveness, as is often claimed, Ireland would be leading the competitiveness league. Instead, we are well behind other small open economies such as Austria, Belgium and Finland which have far higher levels of wages, tax and robust protections for workers. Almost half of the workers in Ireland’s indigenous economy work in low-wage sectors with high levels of precariousness such as the hospitality and retail sectors. This is well above the European average. At the same time, indigenous employment in the Irish manufacturing sector is approximately half what it is in comparable European economies. This means that we simply cannot generate the same levels of wages and wealth as those economies. As well as encouraging Irish businesses to move into high-wage and high-value sectors, we need to tackle Ireland’s high levels of inequality, poverty and social exclusion which are hindering economic growth. I noted that our goal as legislators had to be the creation of sustainable jobs, sustainable communities and a decent society. In this respect, the manner in which the labour market functions is of critical importance. Ongoing labour market restructuring is dramatically altering the life chances of a significant proportion of the population. This is having a direct impact on the standard of living of households. Therefore, I urge the Minister to look afresh at the many issues that contribute to the sustainability of the labour market as she begins work in her new portfolio.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le mo chomhghleacaí, an Teachta Quinlivan, as ucht spás a thabhairt dom. It is important that we are accurate in our analysis of this issue. Obviously, there has been an increase in employment in recent years. We welcome this. It is also important to realise that 350,000 people remain on the live register, that 81,000 people are on job activation schemes and that during the term of the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, a net total of 147,000 people emigrated. The number of people to whom such collateral damage has been caused is far greater than the number of jobs created in recent times.

The focus of the debate is on the delivery of full employment. Economically speaking, full employment is generally deemed to have been attained when the unemployment rate is between 3% and 4%. The lowest rate of unemployment recorded in this country was 3.7%. Fine Gael has set the bar for full employment at 6.4%. It seems that if one moves the goalposts, it is easier to win the game.

It is important to talk about economic sustainability in this context. Obviously, sustainability is about having balance within the economy. The economy crashed because so much of it was sucked up in construction, property development and finance. It is important to mention that 90% of exports from this economy come from foreign direct investment companies. The majority of corporation taxes come from a handful of foreign direct investment companies. We are not achieving the necessary balance between foreign direct investment and indigenous business such as that typically achieved in countries such as Denmark and Austria.

In recent years the vast proportion of inward investment - 70% in some years - was in Dublin and Cork at the expense of other regions. While there has been an improvement, to a large extent, it has been because there is very little space left in Dublin where rental prices are going through the roof. It is not necessarily the case that the Government is steering investment into the regions. I suggest investment is now taking place in the regions because the Dublin economy is grinding to a halt as far as opportunities for further growth are concerned.

The retail sector is a good barometer of how indigenous business is functioning. In Cork, Sligo and Athlone one fifth of all prime retail spots are vacant. The level of vacant retail space is 15% in Sligo, 10% in Cork and 18% in Athlone. Obviously, the use of retail space is nearly at capacity in Dublin. This is another example of the disparity between Dublin and the regions. Some 68,000 jobs have been created since the low point.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Robert Troy)

Go raibh maith agat, a Theachta.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

I appreciate that my time is up, but I remind the Chair that the Minister was given an additional seven minutes. I would greatly appreciate it if I could be given one more minute.

Approximately 68,000 jobs have been created in Dublin since 2011. In the same period some 8,000 jobs were created in the mid-west, while just 1,600 were created in the west. We have an economy that is phenomenally lopsided. It is really important for the Government to get to grips with the need to achieve a balance in that regard. No part of the State has reached peak levels of employment. Employment in Dublin is approximately 4% short of peak levels. Employment in the mid-west, the Border region and the west is approximately 12% lower than it was in 2007. I mention this to point to the massive difference.

I will conclude by speaking about the improvements that need to be made. I ask the Government to prioritise investment, the level of which fell from €9 billion to approximately €3 billion during the tenure of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Investment is really important if we are to rebalance the economy. We also need to make sure we have public banking systems that are empowered to deliver credit to small businesses around the country. This includes the credit unions which have a better geographical footprint than the banks.

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh, as ucht am breise a thabhairt dom.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan

If Deputy Peadar Tóibín had not spoken, the Minister might have been thinking that the Limerick Deputies were ganging up on her. This is the third contribution to be made by a Deputy who represents a Limerick constituency.

I am pleased to participate in the debate on this important subject. I welcome the reduction in the rate of unemployment, which stood at 15% when my party joined the last Government but now stands at less than 8%. In addition to focusing on the decrease in the rate of unemployment which is a very positive development, it is important to say there has been a significant increase in the number of actual jobs. The figures for areas outside Dublin mentioned by the Minister are also to be welcomed because they show that there is some balance in the growth, despite the point made by Deputies Peadar Tóibín and Niall Collins that some regions still need support. It is important that we maintain a strong focus on ensuring development is balanced. For that reason, I was delighted to be present at the launch of the mid-west jobs action plan a couple of months ago. The regional jobs action plans are really important. They need to be implemented and the targets set in them need to be reached. It is important that the specific targets for each region are built on their strengths. When the Minister is responding at the end of the debate, she might talk about how these aspects are being monitored to ensure the individual regional jobs action plans are being delivered on.

That is really important and is something that needs to be monitored.

One of the reasons my region in particular has had strong growth is because of the interaction between the educational institutions and the job creation targets. In Limerick, we have the University of Limerick, Limerick IT, Mary Immaculate College and the colleges of the Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board. There has been a very strong connection between opportunities for employment growth and the educational institutions. That is a vital factor. I pay tribute to Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and the local enterprise offices because there has been a strong sense of working together to anticipate need, such as putting on specific courses designed to support new jobs coming into the region. That is certainly my experience in my region.

There are programmes such as Springboard, which was under my Department when I was the Minister for Education and Skills. It means people who have a skill which no longer has job opportunities can be retrained. They can be retrained in areas such, as IT or wherever there are job opportunities. That is a very good programme which has a high record of employment for the people who participate in it.

Concentrating on sectors has been positive. Tourism, for example, with the reduction in the VAT rate, has been an area of strong growth. However, I support the point made by Sinn Féin Deputies that there are still many on low wages in the tourism sector and in other sectors. Continuing to increase the minimum wage is going to help in that regard. I am not going to rehearse last night's debate but we increased the minimum wage twice during the lifetime of the last Government and that progress needs to continue. It also needs to continue in the context of the high rate of low pay among female workers which was an issue raised by the Minister and by Deputy Quinlivan. All of those areas are ones in which we need constant improvement, particularly with regard to the minimum wage.

I wish to focus on people who are at risk of unemployment. I am talking about people in situations of intergenerational unemployment or people who do not aspire to go to a college but who need opportunities. I am very proud of the fact that we were able to set up the Apprenticeship Council and start the beginnings of new apprenticeships. I have the report of the Apprenticeship Council here. Some 86 areas were identified as possibilities for new apprenticeships and 25 of those were prioritised to be rolled out over the next year in areas such as manufacturing and engineering, tourism and sport, financial services, IT, transport, distribution and logistics and business administration and management. That is under way now and will provide real opportunities for choice for young people. The Minister mentioned the educational options available in Germany, Austria and so on. We need those kinds of options.

We also need to continue to increase the number of apprenticeships in the traditional construction area. That went up by approximately 40% last year. It needs to continue to go up because, as the economy recovers, we need tradesmen and tradeswomen in our economy. We also need to encourage people who have gone abroad to come back to Ireland to work. There are many people with construction experience and trades who are working abroad who can, and should, come back to Ireland.

I contrast that with a time when the economy was beginning to grow and we were getting close to what was described as full employment, although I take the point that was made that it is not actually full employment. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment at the time was Mary Harney of the Progressive Democrats. I remember her going off to countries thousands of miles away to try to attract workers to come to work in Ireland. At the same time, there were young people living in my constituency who had dropped out of school early and were simply being paid the dole, without any effort to retrain them or give them the skills that would give them opportunities of jobs. As the economy grows again, we must not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of going off to look for workers in other parts of the world, apart from the Irish people we want to bring home. I am not saying that people should not have free movement and come here if they have special skills. I am talking about educating and training young people in Ireland to be able to take jobs in their own country. That is why the turnaround in the Department of Social Protection led by Deputy Joan Burton was very important because she turned it into a Department that was not just paying out money but was actually giving people opportunities to go on training or education schemes or get in to work. That is why the Intreo offices are really important.

Training programmes have played a part. Even in our own manifesto, we said that we would phase out JobBridge. I know that it has been the subject of criticism from various sides of the House. There are other schemes such as community employment schemes and so on that have given real opportunity to people to get training in their own communities and to support community organisations and we need to acknowledge the importance of those schemes. Deputy Quinlivan will know very well St. Munchin's Community Centre, King's Island Community Centre, Moyross Community Centre, Southill Area Centre and Our Lady of Lourdes Community Services Group, in which people are working. In St. Munchin's, for example, which Deputy Quinlivan would be very familiar with, people are able to move on to real jobs in the social economy and set up their own small businesses as a result of what happens in the centre. We need to build on that and support our communities through supporting these centres. There are problems with some of the schemes but there have certainly been positive opportunities. I have seen people go from no hope of employment to getting a real job or a self-employed job as a result of these opportunities.

There are a number of opportunities in other sectors, such as the arts. I know that there has been a response to the fact that the arts has not got a junior Minister and is in a very big Department. There are very good job opportunities in the area of the arts that we need to develop.

Over the last two evenings, we have had the opportunity to speak about workers' rights and ensuring people are protected from low pay and exploitation. I do not wish to go back over what I said on that but it is really important that, as the number of jobs grows, there are properly paid jobs and people are treated properly. The Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Pat Breen, said in his speech on Tuesday that the latest CSO figures show that the number of casual and part-time workers is continuing to fall and that in the year to April 2016, the number of such workers fell by 8.3%, or, in real figures, 5,798. He also mentioned that figures for part-time under-employment were down. We need to focus on those areas as well so that people have the opportunity to have full-time jobs where they are available for full-time jobs. There are many casual jobs now in the economy and we need to ensure we continue to make progress in that area as well.

I am glad of the opportunity to participate in this debate. I believe there are many opportunities to continue to develop the economy and job opportunities. My main point is that we want that to be inclusive. We do not want to have a sector in our society and in our communities that is left out of opportunities for employment. We need to bring all of the strands together, including education, training, job opportunities and all of the support structures to ensure that those people are included in a growing economy and a developing society.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Robert Troy)

I call Deputy Bríd Smith. You have ten minutes. Are you sharing your time?

Deputy Bríd Smith

Deputy Mick Barry is going ahead of me.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Robert Troy)

That is not a problem. Are you taking five minutes each?

Deputy Mick Barry

That is correct. Yesterday one of the largest trade unions in the State published a very significant report on the issue of wage levels in this country. The report found that Ireland is now a low-wage economy. It found that there is a disproportionate percentage of people working in low-paying jobs. In effect, Ireland is now competing with Portugal to be the low-pay capital of Europe. We want to move away from a model of a low-pay economy to a model of a highly skilled economy with a well-educated and qualified workforce and good quality, well-paid jobs.

An absolute key to this is education. "Education, education education" needs to be the slogan. All barriers to education must be removed. Last Saturday, The Irish Times reported on a recommendation to increase college and university fees to €4,000 a year, which will be contained in the as yet unfinished Cassells report into third level funding.

The newspaper went further and said that a Department of Public Expenditure and Reform briefing paper for the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, states that €4,000 is not enough and needs to be increased to an even higher level. The report did not tell us what level, if any, the briefing paper suggested fees might be raised to. It could be €5,000, €6,000 or €7,000 but we do not know. That briefing paper should be published immediately and the Cassells report, when complete, should also be published immediately.

There cannot be a discussion on the jobs of the future without discussing the educational qualifications of the workforce. I believe civil servants and those Deputies on the Government benches are planning to rig the system even further in favour of their kids, the kids from the middle classes and the higher income sections of society. They will get the good education and, as those on the other side of the House hope, they will get the good jobs. Meanwhile, our kids, the kids from the working class homes, will get the educational scraps and the McJobs, in a full employment society which is stuffed to the gills with the working poor.

To add salt to the wounds, Cassells is reported to be on the verge of recommending the introduction of a student loan scheme. Do Government Deputies not realise that these schemes have proved to be a disaster in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere where they have been introduced? While we might have what, in capitalist terms, is deemed to be full employment - that is, unemployment of 5%, 6% or 7% - we will have hundreds of thousands of graduates, and those who do not get as far as being graduates, saddled with a mountain of debt running into tens of thousands of euro. These graduates, by the way, often get caught in a pincer movement. On the one hand, they end up in low-paid, precarious employment while on the other, they are saddled with massive debts.

There are 160,000 persons or more in full-time third level education in this State. I am appealing to those 160,000 people and, by the way, to the school students of this country, to watch this debate very carefully. We are not today or this week calling on 160,000 young people to come out onto the streets in opposition to the student fees and to the threat of a student loan scheme but it may very well take 160,000 young people coming out onto the streets to put an end to this class bias and this madness. Watch this space on this issue.

Deputy Bríd Smith

One of the Sinn Féin Deputies said something that causes the imagination to stretch a lot. He said the Minister may well be following in the footsteps of Countess Markievicz. I am sorry but I do not think there is any comparison. She may be Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation but there is no comparison between the two ladies.

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan

I said she was the second Minister in this area.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Footsteps is a different matter. Countess Markievicz was a revolutionary and, clearly, the Minister is not a revolutionary.

Deputy Niall Collins

Will the Deputy not give her a chance?

Deputy Bríd Smith

With regard to what she said today, it is welcome to see an increase in the number of jobs but I argue that we have to put an emphasis on the type of jobs. The first thing to point out is the disparity between what the live register says about employment figures and what the unemployment figures say. While the Minister acknowledges this, it is important to re-emphasise there were 315,600 people on the live register for the first quarter this year whereas the unemployment figure was 169,700. Given the difference of nearly 150,000, it is an important figure to acknowledge. This means there is a huge tranche of people who are probably in very low paid, part-time work. Many are still on job activation schemes, which remain hugely controversial, such as JobBridge, Gateway in the local authorities and the initiatives for graduates, which are not paid at all - lip-service is all that is paid to them as workers. There is a huge tranche of working people who are still being very badly exploited.

Other speakers referred to the figures on the low wage economy that is Ireland. The figures Unite published yesterday show that our wages are 6% below the European average but if we are compared to northern and central Europe, which is probably more of a realistic comparison and which takes in the Nordic countries and countries such as France, Germany and Belgium, we are 18% below the average. One of the reasons for this is that most of the work that is carried out, apart from it being part-time and low paid, is in wholesale, retail and hospitality. If we sought to bring those workers up to the European average for those sectors alone, we would be talking about a pay increase of between 23% and 25%.

The Luas drivers came in for a lot of criticism for looking for increases of this nature and they were on much higher pay than people in the retail industry. Nevertheless, had they won those increases, they would today be setting a trend and pulling up by the bootstraps those who are disadvantaged in this country. This is one of the reasons we supported them. We knew that had they won that struggle, it would help to raise everybody's boats - not the yachts, but the boats.

In the past five years, workers have had a pay increase of approximately 1% while managerial and professional grades have had pay increases of about 11%. There is huge inequality in terms of work, pay and the nature of work. Most work done by low paid workers in this country is in finance, call centres, restaurants and hospitality.

Ireland is held up globally as a great example of how the free market works, with free market policies of little or no regulation and the move to privatising public services, leaving everything to the market because it will solve all our problems. We have to rethink that and look at how we will solve both the problems of workers and of the wider society in terms of creating our own indigenous industry. There are many indigenous, sustainable industries we could focus on. I appeal to the Minister to think about this in the coming period.

We should start with renewable energy, which could be developed greatly. We need to look at how to do that, given it would help the green economy and our carbon footprint and it would also help to create and sustain skilled, long-term and properly paid jobs. Dealing with the housing crisis would also do this. We need to build social housing. Why not create a State-funded social housing enterprise that can take bricklayers, plumbers and carpenters off the dole and also provide education for future skilled workers of this nature through apprenticeships? We could thereby begin to solve the housing crisis but this would have to be public and social housing, not from the private market.

We also need to look at water conservation. A big row in the Dáil and across society for the past five years has been about water and the fight against privatising water. Conserving water could be dealt with by creating well-sustained, well-paid public jobs in dealing with leaks and retrofitting homes with brown and green water methods and with dual-flush loos. We need to really look at providing decent sustainable jobs on the one hand while on the other, dealing with the real challenges that face us in regard to public services.

I want to put that argument. Others will ask how I and my group propose to pay for it so I will repeat the old mantra. Look at our taxation system and corporation tax, look at what the very wealthy get way with and begin to look at progressive taxation as a way of creating sustainable jobs and, at the same time, deal with hard-pressed public services.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Robert Troy)

Deputies Tommy Broughan and Catherine Connolly are sharing time. I call Deputy Broughan.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the topic of delivering full employment.

I congratulate the new Minister on her appointment. I welcome the CSO's report which states the rate of unemployment continues to fall and now stands at approximately 7.8%, amounting to fewer than 170,000 people last month, which marks a decrease of approximately 40,000. The news that the unemployment rate is at its lowest since the end of 2008 must be welcomed. We have had many devastating years of employment contraction. The outgoing Government which the Minister strongly supported was responsible for many of the job losses because it took more than 30,000 jobs out of the public sector, the multiplier effect of which was devastating. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, in particular, have a huge responsibility for the employment losses. We had just reached the 2 million mark for the number of people in employment at the time of the onset of the crash and have been struggling for the past four or five years to increase the number in employment.

The Minister mentioned, in particular, the tourism, hospitality and construction sector, as well as administrative and support service activities. Several years ago the then Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin, announced that there would be social clauses in public construction contracts, particularly for school project bundles, in order that if, for example, one was building on the north side of Dublin, unemployed building workers in the area would be directly employed during construction. By and large, this has not happened. The debate we had this week on the Private Members' motion which had been initiated by Deputy Brendan Howlin had a surreal Alice in Wonderland atmosphere. Deputy Brendan Howlin and his colleagues had an opportunity for five years, with Fine Gael, to do all of the things they spoke about doing but did not do. Suddenly, they have had an incredible transformation after a few weeks out of government. It has been a road to Damascus conversion for Deputy Brendan Howlin and the Labour Party. We have not seen social clauses, but it is welcome that construction is beginning to start at long last. Pompey told the Roman Senate at one stage that "Rome must build, build, build." A clear objective of the Government and the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, must be that we "build, build, build," but we also need to ensure unemployed building workers from deprived communities get a chance to find a job in the schemes which are going ahead such as those in my constituency across the north fringe.

Youth unemployment remains far too high, at 15%, although there has been a welcome decrease since the height of the recession. The numbers I received last week, in conjunction with the National Youth Council of Ireland, in a parliamentary reply from the Minister showed that several months ago the number of people under the age of 26 years in receipt of jobseeker's allowance was more than 35,000, with 7,000 in receipt of the full rate, 4,500 in receipt of the €144 payment and 23,000 in receipt of the lowest rate of €100 per week. There are many areas where the level of unemployment is significantly higher such as some of the areas I represent. The length of time the young people concerned experience unemployment is worrying. The Minister told me that, on 30 April, more than 26,000 people had been in receipt of jobseeker's allowance, jobseeker's benefit and credits for six months or more. Many young people are becoming endemically unemployed. This relates to the speech made by Deputy Mick Barry. We need to provide opportunities in these districts, in particular, to avail of third level education and apprenticeships. The apprenticeship system seemed to fall apart during the crash. We could not find sponsors for young people who wanted to become carpenters or electricians or enter any of the other skilled trades. This is something to which the Minister should give her absolute attention immediately.

Female workers were damaged during the recession. Their wages were damaged severely. The Minister could do something - I hope she will - for women returners, as we called them in our northside community work projects. They should have access to community employment. They do not because they do not have a social welfare record. The former Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, had five years in which to do something about this, but she did nothing. I ask the Minister to take it up.

Deputy Catherine Connolly

Déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire nua agus guím gach rath uirthi. Tá súil agam go mbeidh muid in ann obair as lámha a chéile. I congratulate the new Minister. I welcome the invitation to work with her and share good ideas that we have.

Like other speakers, I also welcome the drop in the unemployment rate. To analyse the effects of this, one must put it in context. Only two speakers referred to the damning report issued yesterday by Unite. Will the Minister read the report and come back to us with her response? As has been pointed out, the truth about Irish wage levels reveals that the highest paid private sector workers earn almost four times as much as the lowest paid employees. It also reveals that, taking wages into account, PRSI payments were 6% below the EU average. Ireland has the second highest level of wage inequality - the most damning part of the report - with regard to the difference in wages from top to bottom.

There are many good ideas in A Programme for a Partnership Government, which I have read, on job creation and rural development. It is welcome that we now have a Minister with responsibility for regional development and rural affairs. That is extremely important. What Mr. John Moran said lately, that we could not afford to look after rural Ireland and that we should move towards development in cities, was appalling. Ireland's population is one of the most rural in the European Union, with 42% of Irish people living in rural areas compared to the EU average of 27%. I did not know this. More than one third, or 35%, of Ireland's population live in cities, while one quarter live in towns and suburbs. People living in towns and suburbs are also at greater risk of poverty and social exclusion.

If we place the Minister's speech and A Programme for a Partnership Government with regard to jobs and rural development in context, we must look at what has happened in the casualisation of work. We are all aware of the unpredictability of income and jobs. This is intimately and integrally tied up with housing and the difficulty in accessing affordable rents or mortgages. With insecure jobs we have insecure lives, which leads to difficulties with health and housing. Everything is interrelated.

I welcome the positive aspects, but we cannot wait all of the time for the economy to pick up. It must be driven by sustainable jobs. I see this in reverse to the Minister, but perhaps we are not that far apart. Sustainable jobs should lead the economic recovery. There are many good ideas on pages 43 to 54 of A Programme for a Partnership Government with regard to village and town renewal and capital investment, but there are also absences. The commission for economic development in rural areas came up with many good ideas, but it is not mentioned. Will the Minister specifically address it and its recommendations? The University of Limerick study is not mentioned either. It was a study of the prevalence of zero-hour contracts, if-and-when contracts and the appalling situation in which employees found themselves. It made 14 recommendations, but it is not mentioned. I know that it is difficult and that the Minister did not have time, but it must be addressed and we must have timeframes.

With regard to sustainable development, Deputy Bríd Smith mentioned indigenous industry and I fully support her. It should be the driving force for economic development. There are many opportunities in alternative energies, as she pointed out, and the seaweed industry, on which we are awaiting a report. It could create many sustainable jobs. I was at a conference in Trinity College Dublin recently, at which a farmer businessman from Quilty, County Clare, pointed out that 18 jobs had been created in the production of seaweed products which were keeping people in the local area. The fishing industry has not been mentioned. The quota system has left fishermen without sustainable jobs from County Donegal to County Kerry on the west coast. This issue must be examined. These are simple matters.

If we go back to youth unemployment, which Deputy Broughan has mentioned, it is at 15%. Apprenticeships are vital, and I would like to see a review report on them as to where they are going. To be parochial again, but also to make a general point, I live in Galway, where the city council has seen its staff drastically cut back. There are no summer jobs for young people. If we were seriously interested in young people, we would have summer schemes so that they can remain at work.

Any rise in employment figures is positive but must be seen in the context of emigration figures, which are still appallingly high. Last year alone 35,000 Irish people left this country. The figure for the last five years is, I think, more than 250,000, so any improvement must be seen in this overall context.

Finally, I must mention the Leader programme, which is something about which I would like to come back to the Minister. FORUM Connemara, which has 25 years' experience and expertise on the ground, is finding itself being removed from the programme.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Alan Farrell)

I suggest that Deputy Connolly submit a parliamentary question on that matter.

Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly

If we are to have full sustainable employment in Ireland, I suggest to the Minister that we need to do the following in this Dáil term. First, we need to increase investment in business-critical infrastructure, particularly broadband and transport. Second, we need to increase investment in our education system, coupled with serious reforms at secondary and tertiary levels. Third, we need to increase investment in basic scientific research, something that has been cut to shreds in recent years. Finally, we need to systematically reduce the costs of doing business, including in such areas as interest payments, compliance, energy, insurance and legal duties.

We need to be just as ambitious and provide just as much support for our small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, as we do for the multinationals. This includes cutting red tape, supporting innovation, getting credit flowing, equalising taxation and social protection for the self-employed and making it easier for people to go to work, for example, by making child care affordable. All of these things are possible but they require a clear focus and determination by the State in the coming years. This includes us in the Oireachtas, local government, the Civil Service and a range of other State agencies.

The Minister probably does not agree, but I would posit that the previous Government got many things wrong. However, it is important to give credit where credit is due, and nobody can deny the job growth that we have seen and continue to see. Approximately 135,000 jobs were created during the term of the last Government. Unemployment is now thankfully below 8% and continues to fall, and we continue to lead the world in attracting high-value foreign direct investment, FDI, to Ireland, which is something for which IDA Ireland and the former Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, deserve great credit. Interestingly, in the first quarter of this year tech firms in Ireland raised €237 million in venture capital. That is twice what was raised in VC for tech firms last year, so there are some very encouraging signs this year in the marketplace.

However, I think we would all agree that job creation has been very unbalanced. One of the largest failures and areas for focus to date is youth unemployment, which is still nearly 20%. The research by the World Bank shows, sadly, that in terms of economic and social indicators, this high level of unemployment will stay with and affect that generation until retirement.

Business in rural Ireland has been decimated. I travelled last weekend around towns and villages in Mayo and I would say there were some where one in every three shopfronts was closed and others where two in every three were closed. Entire towns and villages are becoming ghost towns, which clearly needs to be addressed. In Wicklow, my constituency, vacancy rates in commercial property are still at 13%. I am sure the Minister is talking to business owners around the country, as I certainly am, many of whom are still hanging on by their fingernails.

Sadly, of course, the greatest reduction in unemployment over the last five years has been due to emigration. A total of 35,000 people emigrated last year alone and - I was shocked when I read this figure this morning - 220,000 people under the age of 25 have left the country since the economic crisis began. That is a huge number of people for the size of our population.

The question we are addressing today is how to turn a fragile and uneven jobs recovery into a sustainable and full one. I would like to suggest a range of different measures to consider. We must utilise much more fully the multinationals that are here. Long may these companies continue to come and long may they stay, but we must start linking indigenous industry much better to the multinationals. The original FDI strategy, if one looks back a few decades, was that the multinationals would come and Irish indigenous industry would become the supply chain to them. However, that has not happened. The multinational base in Ireland is becoming more productive, but the data show that the gap in productivity between the multinationals and the indigenous sector is growing. Dr. Catherine Mann of the OECD stated recently at a conference, "The assets are here [that is, in Ireland], but they're not being linked in to the domestic economy. They're not being levered up by domestic firms, and they're not being married to domestic workers". Enterprise Ireland is tasked with creating these linkages but it is operating on a very small scale. There needs to be a lot more investment and Enterprise Ireland's team needs to grow. This is a huge area of potential for the indigenous sector.

We also must get much more serious about helping our SMEs access not just credit, but affordable credit. The ECB's latest statistics show that Irish companies are paying on average 5.8% interest on loans under €250,000. In France the average rate is 2.4%; in Austria it is 2.2%. Our firms are therefore paying between 60% and 100% more for their credit. We need our firms to be internationally competitive but they will only become competitive if they can borrow at the same rates as the international firms - the French, Austrian and American firms - with which they are competing.

There are many things we can do here. We can work with the banks to find ways of reducing their average cost of capital. We can establish a community banking system. The credit unions alone have about €8 billion on deposit that they are waiting to use and lend out but because of the current legislation, the Central Bank rules, they are not able to do so. We need to make firms much more aware of the Credit Review Office. When firms go to the Credit Review Office they are getting very positive responses. If one does a straw poll of the firms, however, to ask them whether they are aware of the Credit Review Office and the other supports around, be it the local enterprise offices, LEOs, or other areas, the level of awareness is not that good. There is therefore very important work to be done to reach out to the SME sector and educate SMEs as to what is already available.

Ireland's investment in infrastructure needs to be increased. This is critical. IBEC, ISME and everybody else are calling for it. I understand investment levels are about half of the OECD average at the moment, at about 2.2% of GDP. We must get the national broadband plan back on track. The dates that are now being used have been pushed in some cases by two years so far. It is already slipping a lot, and my fear is that it will continue to slip. It is probably the single most important piece of strategic infrastructure required for job creation in the country at the moment.

Some very critical transportation links also need to be completed. A high-quality connection between Cork, Limerick and Galway is one and the ring road in Galway for the multinationals is another. The latter has become a car park. It has become so bad that many people are saying they cannot get to and from work, so very serious investment is needed.

We probably agree on the need for investment. Where we may disagree - I ask the Minister to have a very serious think about this - is that if we are to be serious about having the money to invest, then a tax erosion policy is not the way to go. We are a fairly low-tax economy, so I ask the Minister to consider that if we are to have the money to invest, further erosion of the revenue base is not the way to proceed.

We must also invest in education. The Minister has a serious background in education. Class sizes are still far too high. Per-student investment in third level has fallen off a cliff in the last eight years. It is at about 50% of what it used to be. Funding to basic scientific research has been cut by about 60%. That may save a few euro today, and maybe it was necessary in the recession, but it is cutting off a pipeline of innovation and high-calibre scientific research for decades to come, something that must be addressed.

There are also many ways of making business easier in Ireland. We can reform the commercial rates regime, not to just take into account the theoretical value of the property, but also to perhaps take into account turnover. Perhaps we should also consider the number of people employed so that we do not disadvantage small firms competing with bigger firms or higher-turnover ones, such as some of the supermarkets. They have the same footprint as smaller firms but a huge turnover and therefore pay much less tax as a percentage of revenue or profit.

We can simplify compliance for small businesses all over the place. We can implement a user-friendly web portal. The Norwegians did this very successfully in 2003. It is called Altinn and we should examine it. It was established for tax compliance and is used for a range of services in Norway. We need something similar here.

The Commission for Energy Regulation, ComReg, urgently needs to be tasked with examining energy prices. They are far too high for households and businesses. It must be systematically addressed. There are many ways we can make it easier for people to go to work. Child care is a major trap for people returning to work. New apprenticeship programmes, including advanced qualifications would be very useful, as would equalisation of tax credits for the self-employed and social protection. Making research and development tax credits much easier for small firms to access would be very useful. I would love if innovation were taught as part of our educational curriculum in some way.

Ireland is a very small country competing in a highly competitive and increasingly globalised world. It is not enough for us to be successful in attracting foreign direct investment and multinationals which can leave just as quickly as they arrive. We must back our own businesses as much as we do the multinationals, and we can. The Social Democrats have laid out a wide range of ideas and I would be delighted to sit down with the Minister, her team and officials and go through them. Now is the time for significant investment and to systematically reduce costs, remove barriers for people returning to work, back our indigenous sector and be just as ambitious for our indigenous sector as we are and should be for the multinationals.

Deputy Peter Burke

I wish the Minister, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, and the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Breen, every success in their respective briefs. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic in light of the new unemployment rate published this week, of 7.8%, which is the lowest since October 2008. Although the outgoing Government did not do everything right and mistakes were made, the Action Plan for Jobs was a very positive initiative and has been a huge contributor to the growing economy that we are now experiencing.

I will critically evaluate the road we travelled during the past five years. In 2010, Government spending was running 50% ahead of income, our unemployment rate was 15% and 300,000 jobs had leaked from the economy. The then Government's priority was initially to create 100,000 jobs. It exceeded expectations, creating 135,000 jobs. There was a reduction in part-time working, meaning all jobs created were full-time jobs and 95% of jobs were not on schemes. Additional jobs are estimated to be putting €13 billion back into the Exchequer and €6 billion back into communities.

We constantly hear, including in the Chamber, that Ireland is benefiting from international factors. Let us review this. A review of EUROSTAT data for our EU counterparts shows unemployment rates in Greece of 26.5%; Spain, 22%; Portugal, 14%; and Italy, 13%. This clearly shows the policies pursued by the Government are working. We still have a long road to travel and we now need to prioritise our rural areas and provincial towns. I welcome the strategic investment fund supporting 18,000 jobs, of which 60% are outside of Dublin. The report on this was issued today. In my constituency, Longford-Westmeath, employment levels have been lagging behind the national average. However, although 1,594 jobs in Industrial Development Agency, IDA, and Enterprise Ireland companies were lost from 2008 to 2010, in just three years, we have won back 1,145. Major progress has been made.

I have suggestions which will support sustainable employment in the midlands region and I encourage a co-ordinated approach across all Departments. We await the deliberations of An Bord Pleanála on Center Parcs, a €250 million project at Newcastle Wood, Ballymahon. Some 750 jobs will be created during the construction stage with a capacity to create 1,000 permanent jobs when the business is up and running. Center Parcs has the capacity to increase our GDP by €32 million, €1 billion over the next 20 years. However, we need to plan to encourage local sustainable employment now. We must run courses and provide training for Center Parcs to ensure maximum benefit by way of local sustainable jobs. Athlone IT and the enterprise and training boards must urgently introduce and prioritise tailor-made courses to support the project. We must focus on skills development to support the project with a start date of next September. A year later will be too late.

We must focus on our strengths in rural areas and invest in sustainable and community-friendly renewable energy projects. We must promote biomass production as an alternative energy. We must advance projects such as anaerobic digestion plants and work on getting the renewable heat incentive finalised to ensure such projects are sustainable.

I welcome the review of JobBridge under the commitment given in Pathways to Work. Two out of three participants were still in employment five months after completing the scheme. There are problems in this area, for example, 400 HSE staff could be on internships at any given time. The core principal of any internship is that career progression routes are clearly identified and set out. However, under the recruitment moratorium there was no opportunity to issue contracts on completion of internships and people on schemes were replaced by other participants. This must be amended in the review and I encourage cross-party thinking on it.

The IDA needs to up its game regarding marketing the individual regions. There is a 70 acre fully serviced IDA site in Mullingar and we must attract sustainable employment into the site to ensure a balanced, sustainable employment. A well-established company, Patterson Pump Ireland, has committed to creating an additional 32 jobs on the site and there have been good news stories in the region. The Government has a plan in place to increase and build on the progress made and with greater resources than we had in 2011, we should be in a position to make real progress and reach full employment if given the chance.

Deputy Josepha Madigan

I join Deputy Peter Burke in congratulating the Minister, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, and the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Breen, on their respective portfolios and I wish them all the best. As we know, our economic recovery rests on our people and their ability to find work. Creating the conditions that facilitate people to return to and remain in work will be of paramount importance and is a core function of our economy. Only by supporting people at work can we pay for the services needed by everybody. Investment in health, housing and public projects needs a growing work base.

By 2011, the year the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government ended, our national debt had increased from €47 billion in 2007 to €189 billion. The figure is very stark and we will have to deal with this economic reality for decades. Unfortunately, many of the improvements I would like to happen have been radically downgraded because of it. Goals, such as treating self-employed people fairly and helping working parents with child care, have been diminished as a result of it. We must be mindful of this. However, I am hopeful for the future. I am confident that with our programme for Government, which sets out a very ambitions plan, we will be able to achieve some of this trajectory into a better action plan for jobs and avoid some of the mistakes that were made in the past.

Is one's work one's worth? It is a rhetorical question. Our work gives us a sense of purpose and place in the world. It connects us to society and gives us a routine. When a person loses his or her job, it is a very personal blow and creates great pressures for him or her both economically and personally. The previous Fine Gael-led Government's record on job creation is its proudest achievement. Enormous progress has been made in reducing unemployment, as Deputy Peter Burke said. We have reached a very encouraging 7.8% and I hope the downward trajectory continues. It is a very positive improvement from 15.1%. Many people make enormous contributions and sacrifices in their workplaces and they must be looked after. While we must look after people in receipt of social welfare, we must also look after people who are working.

I have a particular interest in the self-employed. I have been self-employed for 20 years as a businesswoman. I employ people and I have kept them on through the recession of recent years, which was not easy. I am glad to see that by 2018, we will have increased the earned income tax credit from €550 to €1,650 for the self-employed, which will match the PAYE credit.

We will also seek to introduce a PRSI scheme for the self-employed and provide a supportive tax regime for entrepreneurs and the self-employed. This is a start, and I very much welcome it. However, I want to see the equalisation of treatment between PAYE workers and the self-employed take place as expeditiously as possible.

It is of concern to me that there are 300,000 self-employed in this country, a large number of whom live in my constituency. We do not rely on the State for anything. There is no real safety net, if somebody is ill. Even though I have two sons I went back to work after eight weeks as there was no advantage to me in taking an extended maternity leave in those circumstances. That has an impact on women and locks them out of the labour force on returning to work. We need to take a more in-depth look at that. While I welcome what Fine Gael is doing in the programme for Government and in regard to the self-employed, we need to do more in the future.

I believe that fostering a culture of the benefits of work in our young people is vital. The Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, with her background, will be aware that the primary schools have introduced the early entrepreneurial programmes that teach pupils in a hands-on manner how to write a business plan, apply for a loan and bring the project to fruition resulting in a profit or loss - the very core of the business experience. For these children from generational unemployed families, it shows that work is empowering and opens many doors as opposed to living on welfare all of the time.

We have achieved much and will achieve more in the future. I am optimistic about that. The Minister can rest assured I will do all I can to help create more jobs through the Fine Gael Party, in particular, to look after the self-employed and working parents who also have children.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Alan Farrell)

The next speakers are Deputies Troy and Cahill. The Deputies are sharing a ten-minute slot. I assume they will take five minutes each.

Deputy Robert Troy

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate as it is important that we have statements on a crucial issue such as sustainable employment. I welcome the opportunity to wish well to both the Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, and the Minister of State, Deputy Breen, in their new roles.

I was heartened by the Minister's speech last week in Longford where she stated that the regions will not be forgotten. Whether we like it or not, they were forgotten by the last Administration and that has to be acknowledged. Sometimes I am disappointed and infuriated by what I hear. No Government creates jobs. Entrepreneurs and captains of industry create them. The men and women who take the risk, who invest their own money and who take the chances are the ones who create them. No Government does. What a Government can do, however, is create an environment which will support job creation.

As a country, we are overly bureaucratic. We have not done enough to ensure that there is available credit for the captains of industry. When a person looks to start a business at present, the first burden we impose on him or her is rates from the local authority, which is a disincentive. Then we start looking at charging them commercial rates which take no account of a person's ability to pay. Our energy costs are among the highest in Europe despite the fact that these costs are falling. While it is welcome that there has been improvement in terms of job creation, the 300,000 people who are unemployed today can take little comfort from that. We have seen in the first quarter of this year where the number of long-term unemployed has increased to over 100,000. We need to focus on how we can address that.

The Minister's speech in Longford last week in terms of the regions was welcome because over the past five years of the previous Government, only 2.3% of the IDA Ireland visits were in the midlands. My constituency colleague rightly identified Marlinstown IDA park in Mullingar. It received no visits over that period of time. The business park was constructed and funded during the last time Fianna Fáil was in government and Patterson Pump Ireland is the only factory in it. I am glad to say I played a leading role. At the time I had to argue with IDA Ireland to let that company into the park because I suppose it was not the authority's preferred business for it. Having got agreement to sell a site there, the first thing that happened was that company was burdened with significant levies and charges by Westmeath County Council. This was not the fault of the local authority as it was merely implementing national policy. It is something we must look at if we are to support indigenous businesses.

The Minister visited Longford last week. It was a welcome development to see a family business that started from nothing create 50 new jobs, but we, as a State, are giving that business minimal supports. We are only putting in a fraction of the capital investment in it. That is not fair, it is not right and it is something the Department needs to address. Indigenous Irish business, when making significant investment and creating numerous jobs, should be supported.

I also wish to raise an issue regarding community groups that come together. We have a community group in Athlone, of which my colleague will be aware, called Opportunity in a Million where a number of professionals came together. They offer up their services free of charge from a mentoring point of view. They have gathered sponsorship from local companies so that they can pass it out to young people who wish to start up a business and in the past two years they have supported the creation of 77 jobs. It may not seem a lot in the general scheme of things, but it is a lot in the town of Athlone. Last year, they wrote to 12 Departments and Government agencies seeking support and not one of those supported them. That is not right and again, it is not fair. I would like to elaborate but I do not want to encroach on my colleague's time. It is an issue I will send over to the Department as we should look at supporting it in the future.

Deputy Jackie Cahill

I also wish both the Minister and the Minister of State the best of luck in their new portfolios.

Like Deputy Troy, I will be parochial in my comments and I will make no apology for it. My constituency - I represent Tipperary - has been seriously neglected over a number of years. The figure for unemployment in the south east is 11.9% and I guarantee that for south Tipperary it is higher. There are 7,193 people on the live register in south Tipperary. In north Tipperary, the corresponding figure is 6,475, which is an increase of 163 since January.

I will make a number of points, the first of which is on the IDA Ireland structure in Tipperary, which is split with two management levels, one in south Tipperary and one in north Tipperary. This does not make for efficient operation of the agency. Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland have not focused enough on my county. In 2015, in north Tipperary, we had only five visits from IDA Ireland. Unfortunately, we have had a considerable number of factory closures in Tipperary in the recent years. It is far easier to name off the closures than to talk about the success stories in Tipperary. We have had factory closures in the past couple of months in Cashel, we had CandC in Borrisoleigh closing and only last week we had Suir Pharma in Clonmel being closed. In my own town of Thurles, in the past 25 years we have had 20 factories close, with only two replacements and not anything like the number of jobs that we have lost being replaced. Our urban centres all through the county are dying a death because of the lack of jobs in our towns. As Deputy Troy mentioned, rates is a significant issue. We seem to be putting obstacles before companies rather than trying to help them to start up businesses.

In the past couple of weeks, I had one of the major employers in Nenagh looking to get in 3-phase electricity for his plant after successfully winning a contract in Canada. However, two State agencies, ESB and Iarnród Éireann, kept putting obstacles in the way of getting it done in an efficient manner. It took numerous calls and interventions to have it completed. Those are the kind of difficulties that should not arise. Where we have a company that is going well, everything should be done to make it easy and efficient for it to progress and create more employment.

A savage cut was made to Leader funding under the previous Administration. County Tipperary will receive only 34% of the Leader funding previously available to it, which is a hammer blow. In light of the fact that 66% of the population of the county is rural based, it is hugely dependent on such funding.

The way rates are applied to businesses must be re-examined. Many businesses have closed, with the application of rates having been the straw that broke the camel's back. We need to re-examine the position with a view to ensuring rates are a modern tax based on the profitability of a premises, not its size.

The way IDA Ireland is structured in my county needs to be addressed. It does not help that the county is split into two regions. Another issue is the lack of support for the self-employed and for small business enterprises. All self-employed persons pay PRSI but get virtually no benefits for doing so. That matter must be examined and changes will need to be made.

The lack of profitability in the agrifood sector, particularly for primary producers, will put further pressure on rural economies in 2016 and on businesses in the sector. We must put incentives in place and make sure that, in particular, agricultural merchants who deal with primary producers will be able to withstand the huge pressure there will be in terms of cash flow. That issue must be given serious consideration to ensure there will not be casualties. A lack of cash flow is a temporary hiccup in the agrifood sector. I hope the Government will give this matter serious consideration.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

In recent years the previous Government trumpeted what it saw as its success in creating jobs and stimulating economic growth. The Government is continuing to do this. There is no doubt that jobs have been created and that economic growth has occurred but is the jobs and growth strategy, as the title of this debate suggests, sustainable at all levels? Is it sustainable in the sense that it could be vulnerable to significant changes, external or internal, that could allow the jobs and growth to dissolve overnight, as they did during the Celtic tiger period because of a massive over-reliance on particular sectors and an enormous over-dependence on the whims and profitability of the market? Is it sustainable in the sense that the jobs contribute to a better standard of living for those who are working and for society as a whole or are they jobs that exacerbate social divisions, poverty, stress, mental health issues and make people's quality of life worse rather than better? Will the strategy for jobs and growth help the indigenous small and medium enterprise sector or will it damage it? It is quite possible to create jobs that have these adverse effects, damaging other sectors of the economy and worsening the quality of life for people.

Job creation and growth can also be completely environmentally unsustainable in the sense that they run counter to the environmental objectives which we have no choice but to meet because of the possibility of runaway climate change and the very severe dangers and economic costs it is causing and could cause in the future. Those are the indices against which we have to measure the sustainability of the current jobs strategy or any jobs strategy. In that regard, the jobs and growth strategy of the previous Government in the past five years and of the current Government, in so far as it continues to articulate that strategy, is not sustainable.

When I hear about record growth rates, I shiver. Anybody who does not have the memory of a goldfish should shiver. That is what we heard for five or six years prior to the biggest economic crash in the history of the State. We were told we would have a soft landing and that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. However, there were some people - we were mostly on the left and considered to be complete contrarians, fringe politicians and so on who did not understand economics - who, strangely, were the only ones who said the level of growth at the time was unsustainable when the mainstream members of the political establishment who apparently know about economics were saying it would be fine. The crash came and it was proved who was right. Frankly, because there was an over-reliance on a couple of sectors, most notably the housing sector, the members of the political establishment were hostages captured by the people at the top of that industry and the banking industry. There is no doubt about it. This matter is not about the individuals now facing possible jail sentences or, for that matter, those who got away with what they did. It was blatantly obvious that the political system had been captured by the bankers and the developers and was nodding at any suggestions the latter made. That led us into a massive crash.

Are we guilty of doing the same thing again? I put it to the Minister that we are because we are doing precisely what was done in the run-up to the previous crash, namely, that there is an over-reliance on essentially two sectors. The first of these is the multinational sector. The Minister should not get me wrong. The multinational sector continues to make a contribution to this economy. However, are we making the companies that operate in the sector pay their taxes or learning from what they do in order to develop the skills base and knowledge to begin to build up our own indigenous industrial capacity? We self-evidently are not doing so. I will raise the issue of drugs and medicine on the Adjournment later today. We have the capacity now to develop our own industry in the area of medicine and drugs, which could save the State and the health service in particular an enormous amount of money. We are paying multiples of the price for basic drugs from the multinational companies to which I refer at huge cost to our citizens and our health service. However, there has been no attempt to build up our indigenous capacity within the State to do it on a not-for-profit basis to the benefit of the entire economy, with the effect of creating sustainable jobs in the long term.

Incredibly, we are again seeing an over-reliance on a market which is failing badly in the area of providing housing. It is extraordinary that for the past five years we have essentially been praying that those in the market would eventually get around to building houses. They will not because they do not consider it profitable enough to do so. I then hear from the Government and, disappointingly, Fianna Fáil the mantra that the Government does not create jobs. Sorry, but what are the jobs in the health service? Are they Government jobs? I believe they are. Who created the jobs in local authorities for those who used to build local authority housing? Unless I am mistaken, I believe it was the State that created them. That was done in a range of other areas, including that of forestry. We are massively underperforming in the latter - an area in which we could excel, particularly as Ireland has the best conditions for growing trees in Europe. While the latter may be the case, this country has the lowest level of forest cover anywhere in Europe. It is quite extraordinary.

As a motion I put to the Dáil a few years ago explained, the Irish Forestry and Forest Products Association, IFFPA, indicates that 490 jobs can be created for every 15,000 ha of forest planted. Currently, we have 12,000 people working directly in the forestry sector and 11% forest coverage. If we got to 22%, we would create a further 5,000 direct jobs as well as all the spin-off industry. If we reached the 30% target to which we signed up, we would create 8,000 to 10,000 sustainable jobs in a growth area. It is also an environmentally sustainable area and less vulnerable to the whims of the international market. However, we do not do it because of the complete over-reliance on the private market and EU rules which prevent Coillte, the State forestry company which was established to increase forest coverage, from planting trees and creating the jobs that would be so environmentally and otherwise beneficial to rural Ireland, which is in serious trouble. That planting would generate a series of knock-on industries and would be environmentally very positive in terms of meeting our climate change objectives.

The arts is another area in respect of which the State absolutely has a job creation role. People pay lip service to the arts, but we have the lowest levels of public expenditure on the arts anywhere in Europe. This is extraordinary for a country whose international reputation depends largely on how we have excelled in the arts. In our pre-budget submission, we were the only party - notwithstanding the lip service paid by everyone else - to argue that we should get up to the 0.6% expenditure level for public investment in the arts and create a scheme of public employment for artists to work in communities, directly in the arts, in health, education and all sorts of areas. We could create real, sustainable jobs that would contribute socially and economically and would be sustainable economically over the long term. There are many more examples.

We are massively over-reliant still on the market principles and multinationals that led us into trouble in the first instance. We must move away from the ideological aversion to public industry, which has served us well at various times historically. Why the Government wants to move away from and abandon it escapes me. It can only be because of ideological blindness.

Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on the topic of delivering sustainable full employment. When I entered politics in 2011, the country was in the financial mess left behind by the previous Fianna Fáil Government. Unemployment was at an all-time high, with almost 18,000 men and women unemployed in County Louth alone. In the final three years of that Fianna Fáil Government's term of office, almost 2,000 jobs in Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland companies in Louth were lost. Our brightest young men and women were emigrating daily at an alarming rate. I remind the House, particularly those on the Opposition benches, that this was only five years ago. While it was only five years ago, I wonder if those on the Opposition benches have developed a convenient form of memory loss as they seem to forget, and at times even deny, the mess they left behind. Other Opposition parties want, if given the opportunity, to return us to the boom-and-bust policies that got us in the mess in the first instance. They must believe it is possible to provide world-class public services without having any credible way to pay for them. It is time that these parties got real and started to develop policies that provide real solutions to the problems we face. Simply making noise will never provide a solution.

Let us examine some of the real solutions the previous Fine Gael Government introduced. As I have already mentioned, almost 18,000 men and women were unemployed in County Louth when we took over in 2011. In November 2015, the number of men and women unemployed in County Louth stood at just over 12,500, which was a drop of just under 6,000 or 30%. In the space of just five years, the Fine Gael Government reduced unemployment in County Louth by 30%. That is a real solution to a real problem. Over the past three years, new jobs have been created in County Louth by the many small and medium-sized businesses which have started to benefit from the economic recovery put in place by Fine Gael. Louth has also benefited from foreign direct investment, with one in ten jobs created in the past three years arising in that sector. Companies such as PayPal, eBay, National Pen, SalesSense, East Coast Bakehouse, Prometric and Moorehill Lodge are just some of the larger entities in Louth that have been instrumental in creating jobs alongside our many SMEs. I mentioned the 2,000 Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland jobs lost by the last Fianna Fáil Government. We have replaced those jobs in the past three years. In 2014 alone, an extra 101 permanent IDA Ireland jobs and 461 Enterprise Ireland full-time jobs were created in County Louth.

While there is no doubt that the Fine Gael-led Government has done exceptionally well in fixing the mess left behind by Fianna Fáil, we should not think that our work is complete. While overall unemployment figures have dropped below 8% in just the last week, we must continue to work towards full employment. The Action Plan for Jobs, which was introduced in 2012, has been a great success. A new strategy for 2016 to 2020 is firmly in place and we are committed to creating an additional 200,000 jobs in that period. Of those, 135,000 will be created outside Dublin. We are also committing to reducing unemployment to 6% by 2020, although I take the view that we will surpass this figure before that deadline. The jobs target for 2016 was 50,000 jobs but in the first three months of the year alone, almost 16,000 new jobs were created. There are those opposite who say jobs are only being created in Dublin and then only in certain sectors, but the fact is that all regions are experiencing an increase in jobs and new jobs have been created in 12 of the 14 economic sectors. In my own constituency of Louth, almost 6,000 more men and women are in employment than was the case in the disastrous period of the last Fianna Fáil Government.

We must never forget the mess in which that Fianna Fáil Government left the country. The country was financially destroyed and was losing its young people to emigration. We had to rely on financial assistance from others just to pay our bills. In other words, Ireland was a basket case. No matter on what side of the House one sits, one must acknowledge that the previous Fine Gael-led Government saved the country from financial ruin. We are now entering a new phase and I am sure the policies defined in the partnership programme for Government will continue to create the jobs which, in turn, will fund the public services we all strive to provide.

Debate adjourned.