Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Taoiseach that there have been improvements with regard to job creation, but I would argue that the rate of job creation has not been ambitious enough to deal with the crisis that we are in. If full employment is to be achieved by 2018, the Government, over the next three years, will have to triple the rate of job creation that has occurred over the past four years. We wish the Government luck with that.

The issue of the construction industry is also mentioned in your notes. I want to draw the Taoiseach's attention to the Kishoge dispute. The Taoiseach may be aware that there is a principal contractor who is building a school in Lucan; that contractor has about 13 different contracts with the State at the moment. There has been a dispute going on there for almost a year. Some of the staff there claim that they are being paid half the minimum wage and that they have been forced into self-employment. They have been to the Labour Court; the Labour Court ruling has been ignored by the contractor. The machinery of the State - Scope and NERA, which are investigating the situation - is moving so slowly that there will be children learning in the school by the time they make any determination. Meanwhile men are getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning to stand on the picket line day in and day out to try to get paid at least the minimum wage.

What can be done to ensure that justice, in the construction industry, is served in a timely fashion by the instruments of the State? A plethora of people feel they have been forced down the route of self-employment as a result of these practices. It is leading to a very corrupt construction industry.