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

I thank the committee for the invitation and for supporting our work on the Action Plan for Jobs over the past four years. This is the fourth action plan. Members will be aware of the backdrop to this, which was to try to achieve a cross-government focus on employment. This is the central challenge we all face. The model has been successful for a number of reasons. It has motivated people across government to focus on employment and it has been monitored from the Taoiseach's office, which on a quarterly basis, gives additional impetus. It is an annual process and every year we have the opportunity to discuss with both industry partners and a wider base of stakeholders what needs to be done. That has always ensured fresh thinking in the plan.

The plan has made an impact. It had two simple objectives in the early period, the most significant one being the return of 100,000 people to work by 2016 and, second, as the Taoiseach has often reiterated, to become the best small country in which to do business by 2016. We have made substantial progress on both fronts. The latest numbers suggest 90,000 additional people are back at work and, significantly, in the context of previous queries by members when I have appeared before them, they will be heartened that over the past two years, all these new jobs have been full time. The number of new part-time jobs has declined over the same period.

We are improving steadily in the competitiveness rankings, which reflects the effort to improve the business environment that we took on. Initially, the focus was on export oriented firms and in the first three years, the plan was entirely driven by export growth through the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and tourism but, over the past 12 months, while exports remain strong, our agencies supported 35,000 gross new jobs leading to 15,000 net new jobs. Exports remain a big driver when one considers that for every exporting job, typically another job is generated elsewhere in the economy. However, we are experiencing a welcome return to growth across other sectors.

This year, like other years, we conducted an open consultation to take on the best ideas and we have focused on a number of four core issues. We have instituted regional enterprise strategies for the first time and this is being driven by my Secretary General. We intend to roll out these strategies within every region by July. We see it as a good opportunity not only to focus on the agencies, which I have done in delivering at regional level through local enterprise offices, LEOs, EI and the IDA but also to engage and, hopefully, elicit new responses to the challenge within the regions. To that end, we have made competitiveness funds available through EI and we have also decided that in six regions outside Dublin and Cork specific commitments will be made by the IDA to advance facilities and other property-based solutions will be a major core objective. That has been a significant issue.

The second concern is to focus on start-ups. Two thirds of all jobs in an economy are generated in the first five years of a company's existence. In the difficult years between 2006 and 2011, approximately 93,000 jobs were created by such companies.

I believe it is realistic to double the target for the number of people we will employ in start-ups over a five-year period which would involve increasing start-ups by 25%. It would also improve their survival rate by 25% and would see more growth to scale. The target is deliverable and is a big focus for this year. We will have a start-up gathering later in the year that will put additional focus on implementation in that area.

The third area is the skills challenge. We have often understood here that there is a war for talent in every country in the world. A lot of the new sectors which we must build are very high in their need for new skills and we need to ensure we equip people with those skills. Some of them involve new apprenticeships and is one key part of this year's activity. The first call for new apprenticeships in many years was made last January. This also covers other areas such as ICT and improving the skill-base across all areas. We have clearly signalled that as in other areas referred to, this might be considered as disruptive reform in that it has a huge impact across the board.

The final area is around the whole business environment, which has been a continuing theme. There have been many aspects to it this year. Perhaps the biggest, in terms of impact, has been the introduction of the Strategic Bank Corporation of Ireland. It has committed to provide €800 million in additional resources to SMEs which have found life difficult in the banking environment. The situation is improving but we still need to equip ourselves with more non-bank sources of funding.

The last matter I shall draw to the attention of the committee is largely a response to the urging of the committee. This year, for the first time we have put in place a more clear evaluation framework. We have identified ten areas against which we benchmark everything. That means every activity is being benchmarked and they are listed on page 19. It means every action taken is related back to its impact on some of these key indicators. A lot of people were keen to see to what extent our actions related to objectives that we are trying to achieve. One is never going to get an equivalency of action and impact, it is never as neat as that. The initiative creates a discipline around which we organise and interrogate proposals that come forward to us.

Seo í Seachtain na Gaeilge agus tá orm cúpla focal a rá as Gaeilge faoin bplean gníomhaíochta le haghaidh An Post. Táim lán-sásta go sroichfear an sprioc 100,000 post nua a chruthú i mbliana, bliain iomlán roimh an spriocdháta. I believe we will hit the 100,000 jobs a year before the target. Tá sprioc eile leagtha amach againn lánfhostaíocht buan a bhaint amach faoin mbliain 2018. We have now set ourselves a target of full employment, on a sustainable basis, by 2018. Ligeann nádúr bliantúil an phlean dúinn tosaíochta úra a chur ar siúl gach bliain. The annual nature of the plan allows us to introduce new priorities every year.

Is iad na tosaíochta nua i 2015 ná stráitéis fhiontair réigiúnach a fhorbairt i ngach ceann dár n-ocht réigiún. We are introducing regional enterprise strategies in all eight of the regions. Timpeallacht níos fearr a fhorbairt le haghaidh gnólachtaí nua tionscanta, ionas go mbeimid in ann líon na ndaoine atá fostaithe i ngnólachtaí nua tioscanta a mhéadú faoi dhó thar cúig bliana. It sets the target that within two years we will double the number of people working within start-ups. Tionscnamh náisiúnta talainne a fhorbairt chun cinntiú go mbeadh daoine ann leis na scileanna cuí chun éileamh na n-earnálacha fháis a chomhlíonadh.

We intend to have the skills to support the growth sectors we have identified. Ciallaíonn gach post sa bhreis saol ar ais fé lán-tseol arís agus níos mó airgead á chaitheamh sa phobal áitiúil. Is airgead breise é a bhaineann brú den chaiteachas poiblí, a chuireann airgead i bpócaí na ndaoine agus a chuireann feabhas ar sheirbhísí. Every job we create is a life back on track. It is extra spending in the local community and more money into the public services and public finances so we have the options of reducing tax burdens or improving the quality of services. The work we do on employment is absolutely central to the longer-term ambitions we hold as a nation.