Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. In terms of his assessment of the economy and where it is at, the Minister paints a relatively positive picture of the Government's success, as he would see it, in fixing the economy and preparing it for economic growth, improved employment rates and so forth. However, I would put it to the Minister that when we look at the question of jobs, which is the priority, the balance sheet does not really look that positive. The Government is claiming that it has delivered 92% of its commitments in the programme for Government related to the fostering employment. With 92% of what the Government promised already delivered, in terms of various initiatives, schemes and legislation, the net impact on the chronic level of unemployment is 1%. The unemployment rate has dropped from 15% to 14%. That is not a success story. Indeed, emigration probably accounts for most of that reduction. Whatever about the arguments concerning what we have done to date, from now on we must have a much more focused plan for dealing with unemployment, to offer some hope to the hundreds of thousands of people who are without jobs. I said in the Dáil recently that I do not see why we would not have targets that are as specific for reducing unemployment as the ones the Minister and the troika have for deficit and debt reduction. There are very specific targets set for the amount that will be taken out of the economy and how that will impact on our deficit. Why can we not have targets which chart a course towards reducing unemployment to reasonable levels or, indeed, to as close to 0% as possible? Should that not be a priority and a target for the Government?

I do not see in anything that the Minister has presented the likelihood of that happening, especially because the European economy is in recession through the impact of austerity being imposed elsewhere, and that is to a considerable degree choking off our hopes of export-led growth.

The Minister says service is growing. It has already been pointed out that the export of manufactured goods is declining and the Minister points to some improvement in the domestic economy but in reality it is very flat. Demand is very depressed. The Minister needs to be far more proactive in putting forward a plan to deal with mass unemployment. I do not see anything in what he has said that gives us any hope for a substantial reduction in unemployment in the foreseeable future. He needs to address that matter. It comes down to investment rather than continuing to suck money out of the economy as he is committed to doing by making cuts worth a further €5 billion to meet deficit targets.

Given that the Minister is committed to continuing with these cuts, where does he hope to get this €5 billion? He has just about, perhaps, managed to convince the trade union leadership to accept another €250 million or €300 million worth of cuts but it is pretty clear, regardless of whether he succeeds in getting that deal over the line, that he has reached the bottom of that particular barrel. He cannot expect people to take any more. He cannot expect people who are unemployed or those on low or middle incomes or public services to take any further cuts. Where will that €5 billion come from? Is it not obvious that if he continues to take it from people who are already at the end of the their tether, it will do extreme damage to the economy and society? Given the events of recent days and the revelations about Apple and other companies paying negligible levels of corporation tax, should the Minister not consider this as an alternative source of revenue for the State to pay off deficits and, more importantly, to make the investment the economy so desperately needs? If the reports we hear are correct for just one company, albeit a very big one, making €22 billion in profit in one year and paying only €10 million in tax, 0.5%, one could say that if it paid only 10% tax on those profits, that would be €2.2 billion of revenue.