I thank the Chairman and members for the invitation to address them. I am aware of the wider item of work to which the Chairman referred in his introductory remarks. What I thought I would do is share with the committee some general perspectives I have on the challenge relating to job creation in Ireland. I will also provide an update on the national internship scheme, JobBridge. Given that I work for a company which has made a significant investment in Ireland, I thought I might provide some insights on investment and job creation. I also thought I might refer to some qualities I see as essential elements of a successful jobs strategy.
I accepted the invitation to attend this meeting because I am passionate about job creation in Ireland. I am of the view that this subject is not attracting anything like the focus, priority or sense of urgency that it deserves. The current economic challenges are having a huge effect on every family in the State. Ireland is at a low ebb and people are looking to us for leadership on many fronts. On of the most important ways in which we can provide leadership is in assisting unemployed people to return to the workplace. If we can get this right, we can make a real difference.
The level of work required in respect of job creation is immense and the number of people currently on the live register bear this out. Before we consider the enablers or mechanics relating to job creation, I wish to take a step back. I am of the view that there is a need for an enormous national effort - with politicians, industry leaders and the media being obliged to work together - in order to come to grips with the challenge that exists. We all need to become involved in the business of building a better Ireland.
I am of the view that politicians from across the political divide need to put aside their individual agendas and come together with a unity of purpose in respect of this topic. We need fresh, lateral and radical thinking and we must move away from the current rhetoric which states that the next big idea on job creation is that the previous idea was a bad one and which does not offer any sort of constructive or viable solutions. There is no getting away from the fact that fostering the environment for job creation is going to be difficult and that a unified approach will be required. Sections of the media need to stop talking Ireland down. The perpetual negativity in this particular domain is draining valuable energy away from our nation. It must be remembered that we are at a unique time in our history. Building a better Ireland is not just for the here and now, it is also for our children and future generations.
Job creation should be everybody's business. However, there is very much a national mindset that it is someone else's business. Whereas I am of the view that leadership involves what I, as an individual, can do and what difference I can make, in the context of this presentation the question to be asked is what difference we can make together. Our competitiveness is currently on an absolute knife edge and this must be borne in mind because it is business cases - not sentiment - that create jobs. The national jobs strategy which the Government is working towards must build on our well-established inward investment track record. It must also support small to medium-sized businesses and help them to grow and multiply. Critically, it must also focus on how we can create new opportunities for those who are unemployed. The key to economic recovery is to create an environment whereby every business in the State will actually be in a position to hire staff again. If every business or every second business in the State hired one additional person, we would be well on track to solving the problem that exists with regard to unemployment.
On labour activation and JobBridge, I am a very strong advocate of the principle that Government creates the environment and industry creates the jobs. There is no question about that. In that context, the Pathways to Work initiative packages meaningful back-to-work incentives for people and employers. JobBridge is a very important component of that mix. A year ago I was asked by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, to chair the steering committee for the national internship scheme, JobBridge. The Government set the steering committee an ambitious target to get 5,000 people back into the workplace in order to give them a boost of confidence and allow them to obtain further experience and new skills. I and many of those participating in the scheme believe it deserves critical acclaim. From a standing start, this public-private partnership built the first national internship scheme in the history of the State from scratch in a period of eight weeks Inside ten months, almost 7,000 interns have commenced placements. This has exceeded our expectations. There has been a very strong take-up in respect of the scheme across the public, private and voluntary and community sectors. There has been a strong take-up across company sizes with almost 60% of interns taking positions within Irish small and medium sized businesses. There is a strong take-up across all the key and prime age groups we would target under this scheme. There are some early indications, which we can discuss later, of positive progression rates back into the workforce, certainly rates that are very much in line with similar schemes in operation across Europe. As the Chairman mentioned, last week the Minister announced an additional 1,000 places and a widening of the eligibility criteria to include those in receipt of the one-parent allowance or the disability allowance. The Minister also announced that an independent evaluation of the scheme is to be undertaken with an interim report due in September. Most importantly, the new PRSI incentive scheme, which was announced as part of the Finance Bill in January, will further encourage the hiring of interns into the workplace. JobBridge is a pragmatic response to an urgent problem. From a standing start, we created, and I emphasise this, a universally accessible internship ethos for the first time in the State, and that is a key part of the job activation mix.
I will deal with the broader picture on investment and job creation. At the heart of every investment decision made in Ireland lies the debate on our national competitiveness. We have improved competitiveness in Ireland by a factor of 10% to 15% in recent years but we need to achieve at least the same again in the next two years. Underpinning our efforts to create jobs in this State must be our holding the line on the competitiveness adjustments we have made, difficult and all as that will be. While we have experienced many cost reductions and improvements in competitiveness, many of our competitor countries have achieved similar gains. We cannot take competitiveness for granted. As part of that equation, we simply cannot take foreign direct investment for granted.
For an investor, the Ireland product is still compelling. We are uniquely attractive as a gateway to Europe. We offer a very high skill base, falling labour costs, favourable tax structures and very strong industry-based clusters here, which the IDA put in place in recent years. Traditionally, we have had a very stable economy. Ireland is still a good place to invest but there is intense international competition for every investment that comes into Ireland.
In recent years my company, Hewlett Packard, HP, has been able to translate the improvements in Ireland's cost base into jobs and more investment here. It is our ambition to build HP's Irish operation into a global innovation hub where we will innovate, incubate and globalise from our Irish base. The National Competitiveness Council has provided a roadmap for change which will drive down the cost of doing business in Ireland. We need to ensure that, as part of our work, we deliver on its findings.
I wish to share with the members a summary of some qualities I consider to be intrinsic in a jobs strategy, and we can discuss them in the questions and answers session. First, our jobs strategy must comprise a strong communications strategy, which effectively reinforces the messaging around Ireland's value proposition internationally, strongly addresses perceived threats to doing business in Ireland and allays any fears around economic instability in this country. I strongly advocate a defensive strategy to fight against perceptions of weak corporate demand in Ireland, tight credit and low market confidence. Getting our communications right will be a key part of a jobs strategy.
Under the Government's action plan for jobs, we need to create 25,000 new and incremental jobs in this State annually. In my view if it does not get measured, it will not get managed. Second, I strongly advocate monthly updates of the number of jobs created being published publicly.
Third, our jobs strategy must implement the findings of the National Competitiveness Council and prioritise the delivery of the recommendations outlined in its recent competitiveness scorecard. Fourth, leadership and innovation is a common denominator across OECD countries and our jobs strategy must position Ireland as an innovation leader. The principles of innovation must be adopted into the core of our jobs strategy. In terms of how we commercialise innovation, create a return on investment, understand the downstream jobs benefits and understand that its deliverables and outcomes are realistic, Ireland has to commercialise innovation outcomes and translate that into jobs. Fifth, our jobs strategy must drive a culture of start-ups and entrepreneurship because the reality is that these businesses will be the lifeblood of job creation in this State in the future.
Sixth, Ireland should examine becoming a global hub for intellectual property. We should examine how we could exploit intellectual property and build a proposition that is the best in Europe for patenting, which is better than any offering available in terms of the protection and cost of patents, and the speed of service. If the intellectual property is here, we can centre the jobs here and, most likely, we can make the products or deliver the services from here.
To support all of the above we need a modern primary and secondary educational curriculum with a much stronger emphasis on mathematics, science and the related technical competencies. We welcome the bonus point change made to honours mathematics at leaving certificate level last year. We strongly advocate that science becomes a compulsory subject in the Irish leaving certificate curriculum. We must build the skills and the competencies that enable us to deal with the global market. That means we must at least ensure fluency in international languages. Specifically we strongly advocate fluency in two international languages at leaving certificate level in this State.
I return to the question I posed at the start, namely, what can we do? Today I have offered the members a roadmap covering areas that are well within our sphere of influence collectively which, if acted upon, would significantly improve the environment for job creation in the State. I came here today because I am passionate about job creation and because I am in the business of building a better Ireland, which is the business in which we are all in. If the members came to this meeting expecting a silver bullet, I will leave them with one. It is that we must act now, we must act with urgency and we must act together to solve the job creation problem that exists in this State.
