Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

From an enormously high level, the figures stabilised in recent months and have taken off again in the last quarter. For a country with a population of 4 million and a workforce of 2 million, it is an enormous achievement to have exports of €85 billion.

Of the new jobs announced recently, such as the 600 in Google, the 1,100 in Amgen, those in Wyeth, Centocor and Intel, and others in internationally traded services, a significant number are manufacturing jobs. When one thinks of manufacturing jobs there is a tendency to imagine people working with components or screws. We are talking about manufacturing jobs at a sophisticated level. Pressures in the economy arise in those areas where low-cost companies can enter and compete. NEC has two top-class plants, one in Malaysia and the other in Singapore. The company believes it can take the semi-conductor capacity from the Ballivor plant and move that production to the Singapore plant. This fits in with its operational business. In many cases, we attract foreign direct investment here because of our low tax base in terms both of profits and workers.

There are always issues in regard to competitiveness. I repeat what I have said many times; we must ensure wage movements are realistic so labour costs do not become prohibitive. We must also ensure productivity increases are at least in line with wage increases so competitiveness in terms of unit labour costs is maintained. OECD and EU figures indicate Irish salaries are high. Productivity must match those salary pressures and innovation is required so we move into new higher value products. The vast majority of our companies have been doing well in this regard.

We must ensure workers and managers are trained in the skills necessary to adapt to new technologies and procedures and that employment practices are sufficiently flexible to bring those skills quickly into the market. We must also ensure manufacturers have access to technology and research and development. There was no budget for research and development five or six years ago but we now spend a significant amount in this area to facilitate innovation. This will continue to be the case.

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