Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I am using the Tánaiste's answer. He talks about additional funding. In his answer to Deputy McDonald, he lauded the fact the Government is, for example, recruiting extra gardaí. However, he glosses over the fact that the changes to the pension scheme are going to result in about 1,000 gardaí walking out of their jobs, so the net result will, in fact, not be any extra job creation.

The Government is taking €500 million from the public sector wage bill, the same figure that it is miraculously using to invest in job creation. One can do the sums. It is not just me who is saying this because others have conducted research on it. These are people who gave the Tánaiste a livelihood in the trade union movement when he did not work here and whose subscriptions helped to get him elected to the House. Yesterday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions stated the Government's policies, which it had researched, would result in the loss of 30,000 jobs. That is the Tánaiste's budget. His colleague and fellow party member, Mr. Michael Taft, has said the allowances and incentives introduced rely on the private market and that there is no guarantee that the targets will be met or that the activity would not have happened anyway. For the benefit of the young people who might be listening to these proceedings, will the Tánaiste say where the jobs for them are? The only conclusion they can draw is that they will be poorer and driven out of the country as a result of the Tánaiste's policies.

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