Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

My question had three elements to it. The first related to the number of task forces and the Minister answered that. The second related to cost-benefit analyses, but the Minister did not answer that. The third related to the number of jobs created and that was not answered. In the Minister's reply there was an assertion which was made last year that the task forces were effective in providing a co-ordinated response to major company closures. Is that assertion correct, given that without a cost-benefit analysis we do not know how much each job cost or what was the benefit from them? The Minister also stated that we are trying to develop a competitive economy. How can she say what we are doing is competitive when we have no idea of the costs involved?

We know, for example, that the cost of an IDA Ireland job is in excess of €13,000, the cost of an Enterprise Ireland job is €9,000 and enterprise board jobs cost €4,500. We have no idea how much these task force jobs cost nor how many jobs are created by them. Are any task forces still in operation? Are they answerable to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment or anybody else? For how much longer are they likely to operate?

See this speech in context