Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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The issue of regional enterprise jumps out. Over the past few action plans for jobs, the targets in this regard have been deleted while the IDA reports at the end of each year highlight a collapse in investment outside the two major urban areas in the State. That is having a significant effect in both areas with regard to pressure on property prices and services and loss of services where there is no investment. The Action Plan for Jobs does not seek to tackle that in a meaningful way and this is one of the issues that I find increasingly problematic regarding Government policy.

Access to finance remains a significant issue. Investors currently are piling into property speculation in localised bubbles, helped by the tax system. Property speculation is the enemy of enterprise funding. People want their houses valued properly and they want negative equity to disappear. They want family homes to be built but they do not want to be elbowed out by speculators and by property values increasing by €100,000 in small pockets of the State.

The embassy network is not being properly leveraged by Action Plan for Jobs or the Government. No real, meaningful enterprise targets are in place for embassy staff. I know that is not their primary job, they are a diplomatic corps. However, we need to set objectives for them regarding enterprise development.

Social economy is the poor man of the enterprise sector. These are co-operative organisations that provide services and create jobs and, sometimes, profits. Not enough is being done regarding them, especially the new enterprise infrastructure that is being created. One of the major problems regarding the labour supply is the welfare cliff that exists for people who take on work and lose benefits. I am not sure that is being focused on. Could the Minister comment on the methods of measurement being used to analyse the success of the particular parts of Action Plan for Jobs? The debate is two-dimensional. A proposal is presented and implemented, and that is the end of the discussion. The output, positive or negative, is not measured. Education is mentioned a lot in Action Plan for Jobs but in the key areas of science and engineering, especially at third level, we see our education provision drop out of the top 100 universities in the world.