Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The integrated response is a good one in terms of enterprise, trade and employment. These are inter-related issues. It is extraordinary that a motion of this type, particularly in terms of its incredible negativity, is such a distance from reality. Some 94,000 jobs were created in the economy last year and people want to break up the Department that is responsible for enterprise. I am not saying the Department was responsible for all the jobs, but it has nurtured the right environment, on the basis of the Government's structures and policies. I will deal with the issues in terms of international conventions.

The UN's Declaration of Human Rights was raised in the context of the motion, which suggests we are failing to live up to the State's obligations under Article 23. I wonder if, in reaching this conclusion, the Deputies have familiarised themselves with Article 23 which deals with the right to work, freely chosen, under just conditions, protection against unemployment, the right to equal pay for equal work, the right to just payment for work, supplemented where necessary by social protection measures and the right to form and join trade unions.

Are the Deputies suggesting that their constituents do not enjoy these rights and that the State has not put in place, under successive Governments, a formidable legal framework to give effect to those rights?

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