Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I will share time with Deputies Anne Ferris, Nolan and Broughan.

I welcome the jobs initiative launched on Tuesday, which fell well within the 100 day commitment in the programme for Government. The initiative is in effect a mini-budget. A modest, temporary pension levy of 0.6% over four years will fund the VAT and PRSI reductions on key products and additional expenditure measures on training, placement and job creation. I do not know from where Deputy Cowen obtained the misguided information that it will involve the sale of State assets. It has nothing to do with the sale of assets. After three years of economic recession, an estimated modest 0.75% growth in 2012 will be enhanced by the new measures. Already, exports are performing well in the foreign direct investment sector and in agriculture. This is part of the reason there is no great reference to agriculture within this jobs initiative. It is essential that the jobs initiative should focus on measures to boost indigenous growth and to counter long-term unemployment and this is its precise purpose. The tourism industry, which has lost one third of its 2007 business levels over the past three years, has been targeted with a huge VAT reduction from 13.5% to 9% across the entire industry at a cost to the Exchequer of €350 million in a full year. At the same time, the counter-productive air travel tax on passengers has, quite rightly, been abolished. In addition, a common visa scheme was announced yesterday by the Minister for Justice and Equality between Ireland and the United Kingdom for emerging countries and in particular for rapidly developing nations such as China and India. This will attract tourists who might otherwise only have had United Kingdom as their destination. The halving of the lower rate of PRSI on jobs that pay up to €356 per week will stimulate job creation. I am particularly pleased to note the increase in the minimum wage from 1 July to its previous level. The credit guarantee scheme for small and medium businesses will finally ensure a flow of credit to that sector, which for the past three years has been starved of the necessary resources to thrive, expand and create employment.

The commitment of nearly €100 million to the retrofitting of homes and the building and repair of schools will provide much-needed remedial work and employment in the construction industry. The allocation of €75 million for the maintenance of regional and local roads and provision of cycle and pedestrian routes and park-and-ride facilities is long overdue. The expenditure has been carefully spread throughout the country in urban and rural areas to achieve the maximum levels of employment and infrastructural development in a balanced way. The training schemes, the back to education schemes, the post-leaving certificate courses, the national internship scheme and the third level courses amount to considerably more than 20,000 placements and will ensure that young people do not fall into long-term unemployment but will get a chance to move on.

A sum of €4.5 billion of public capital is to be spent on infrastructural projects in 2011. It is imperative that a cost-benefit analysis be conducted on all capital projects to ensure that employment opportunities are maximised. In my constituency of Dublin Central, a number of significant projects are ready for development and can provide a significant return on the capital spending. It is time to build the national paediatric hospital on the Mater campus as was agreed by the medical experts five years ago.

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