James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

Taking Longford-Westhmeath as a microcosm of the country, it is in no way surprising that as Ireland's economic competitiveness has fallen 17 points since the Minister, Deputy Martin, who has just left the Chamber, came to office, the standardised unemployment rate now stands at 4.9% countrywide, the highest level in seven years and is predicted to rise to a nine year high by the end of this year. Speaking from the perspective of coming from a rural constituency, the direct impact on jobs is most keenly felt in the construction and farming sectors, with farmers being driven out of industry at an unprecedented rate. During recent years Longford-Westmeath has seen overall job losses of almost 150 people at the Lakeland Group, which followed a direct result of the Government's failure to maintain adequate price structure for our farmers. A similar position pertained in respect of Glanbia in Rooskey. We also saw cattle markets in Edgeworthstown, Mullingar and Moate and other enterprises close and several other enterprises threatened in the midlands area.

Every day in Ireland six farmers leave the land, driven out through excessive bureaucracy and red tape imposed by the Government. There are also the stealth taxes and the failure of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to provide guaranteed markets for what they produce. The EU's intervention recently forced the Minister to finally ban Brazilian beef in light of the incidence of foot and mouth disease and lack of traceability of animals. This had serious repercussions on the farming industry and on jobs here. The way the Minister behaved had a serious impact on jobs in a meat plant in Ballymahon in my county council electoral area.

To increase employment opportunities in the farming sector and to retain workers on the land, the Government must provide the best possible educational opportunities for young farmers as this is the key to giving Irish agriculture a competitive edge. The midland counties are starved of infrastructural investment with a shameful and inexplicable underspend in the BMW funding. Strangely this money finds it way back into the Exchequer each year and the Government fails year in year out to meet its obligations to provide essential infrastructure for the development of our country.

Longford-Westmeath, although perfectly situated in the centre of the country with equal access to the east and the west, is losing out on major international investment due to the state of its infrastructure to the detriment of economic development. The counties are getting less than their fair share of State-assisted jobs — it is less than 3%. Employment can be created in this constituency by attracting new industry to Longford-Westmeath, creating off-farm and rural employment opportunities and the provision of additional funding to encourage our indigenous industries, advancing the decentralisation programme, which was promised with great fanfare a number of years ago. Fewer than 1,800 jobs have been delivered. We have in no way met our targets with regard to the 53 locations where decentralisation was promised.

During the Celtic tiger years thousands of untrained workers were drawn into the construction industry, but their future has been dismissed by a Government faced with repercussions of its shameful mismanagement of the economy. Some 93,000 houses were built in 2006 and that number was halved with only 46,000 built this year, as the big freeze in the economy begins to hit home. The most vulnerable group in the construction sector are the estimated 30,000 FÁS supported apprentices in the construction-related trades, particularly those in the so-called "wet" trades such as painters, bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters and plasterers who are highly vulnerable to the housing downturn.

The Government lacks an industrial strategy of lower taxes and high skills. It deserves to be strongly criticised in this regard. I compliment the Labour Party on tabling this motion. Any sensible member of the Opposition, not the hypocritical ones who were here last week, would support this motion. It gives me pleasure to do so.

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