Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 February 2013
1. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the date on which the next action plan on jobs will be published; if it will align job creation targets with each initiative for each Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9430/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn recent months, I have been working with my colleagues in government on compiling the 2013 action plan for jobs. The plan has been approved by the Government and will be launched in the coming days. I should point out that the current plan was introduced against a background of an average of 90,000 jobs being lost in the economy per year.
The challenge is to facilitate a transition from an economy built on unsustainable pillars of property and debt to one built on enterprise, innovation and exports. It has always been made clear that this will not mean a fixed number of new jobs in each of the years of the plan. Too many elements of the economy need to be fixed in this early period to undo the damage caused.
Some measures in the action plan for jobs will include specific job creation targets whereas others will contribute to improving the operating environment, which will support the creation of jobs by the enterprise sector. The objective of the action plan for jobs process is to create a supportive environment for businesses so that they can retain existing jobs and create new ones. We are transforming our economy step by step by taking measures across all Departments and many State agencies to remove administrative burdens on businesses, improve their access to finance, further improve our export performance and support the development of key growth sectors.
One of the significant benefits of the approach taken in the plan is that it has required agencies and Departments across government to put forward measures that are making it easier for enterprises to develop opportunities and create employment. However, most of these actions are not of a character where Departments would have a specific job target.
I thank the Minister for his answer. He stated that the action plan for jobs was a series of broad measures without specific targets, but the difficulty lies in the fact that he and his colleagues in government made a commitment in the programme for Government to create 100,000 new jobs by 2016. The live register figures are not moving. The 400,000 or so people who are on the live register are looking to the action plan to see whether it contains some sort of pathway for them.
I gather that the 2013 edition is being launched tomorrow. There will be great fanfare and great talk, but what specific provisions can be shown to the person on the live register who wants to work to give him or her hope? Tomorrow's launch and fanfare will clash with the medium-term fiscal strategy, which seems to take a more sober assessment of net job creation in 2013. Is the Government's target still 100,000 net jobs created by 2016?
The action plan for jobs contains concrete measures that show improvement. Consider the economy's overall employment performance. When we entered into government, the average figure for job losses in the private sector was 90,000 per year. In the past 12 months, private sector employment has expanded by 12,000. This expansion is being driven by the export-oriented sectors on which we have placed our main emphasis in the plan, for example, ICT, pharmaceuticals and digital gaming. We have targeted growth in these sectors and they are performing well. We need to build upon this expansion. That Irish exporting companies added more than 3,000 jobs in 2012 is a turnaround.
There are pathways for individuals. We also have a "pathways for work" approach, in which the Ministers, Deputies Quinn and Burton, are providing JobBridge, the new Momentum scheme and the Springboard scheme. These initiatives are aimed at assisting people who are out of work to access the areas of employment that we are opening up through our enterprise approach. There is a clear momentum and route. People can see that the plan is working.
We continue to have the ambition of creating 100,000 jobs. We know that we must do better and continue to build. However, turning around a situation in which 90,000 jobs were being lost per year to one in which jobs are being added in the private sector is a significant change.
The live register figures are stuck at where they were two years ago despite all of the Minister's talk of job creation. I welcome JobBridge and the other initiatives, but the CSO's end-of-year figures show that just over 5,000 new places were created in 2012 whereas 300,000 people were seeking places on those schemes. This is not a political charge, but a systemic one. What elements does the action plan for jobs contain to bring the Departments of the three Ministers - Deputies Bruton, Burton and Quinn - together, to get them to set their divisions aside and to put a proper activation system in place?
A proper activation system is not 5,000 extra places when we have 400,000 people on the live register.
A significant number of training places are available. FÁS provides 90,000 and the VECs provide more than 100,000. SOLAS, which comes under the remit of the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills, Deputy Cannon, will bring a new strategic focus to the delivery of training that is relevant to emerging job opportunities. Much change is ongoing to deliver a more effective service to those who are out of work. The Deputy should table his questions to the Ministers who are driving the reform.
In the situation in which we found ourselves, much work was involved in fixing the banks. Credit had collapsed for SMEs. We had the second highest refusal rate throughout Europe. A considerable amount of work was required to fix what was broken in the crash we inherited. That is why one cannot have a neat calculus and say that so many actions will generate so many jobs. Much work remains to be done to fix what was damaged. The work is being done and we are seeing the success of the plan in the figures in employment. The IDA has had its best year in a decade. Enterprise Ireland has had its best year in five years. Exports are reaching record levels. There is double-digit growth in exports by indigenous companies. Those are a measure of the changing performance.
