Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I assure Deputy Calleary that neither I nor my Department needs any wake-up call in terms of the scale of the employment challenge we face. One of the features of our work has been to systematically engage an all-of-Government focus on this singular national challenge.

Let us consider the performance to date. We have in the past 18 months seen 70,000 extra people at work. The vast majority of these are in full-time jobs. That puts us at the top of the OECD league in terms of jobs growth. Certainly, it is not enough to impact on the scale of the problems we face. I agree with the Deputy when he says that people do not yet feel the impact of this change. I agree that we need to continuously challenge the way in which we approach development in the jobs area. That is one of the merits of the Action Plan for Jobs process, in that every year we expose it to public consultation and every year we initiate new actions to respond to the challenges that different sectors are experiencing.

On the positive side, we should recognise that various surveys of business confidence, business intention and order books show that there is still a positive direction in growth. We believe we can build on that positive thrust.

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