Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I also commend this Private Members' motion to the House. The fact that the largest ever increases in the number of people on the live register were recorded in January and February of this year signals that a crisis is looming. The construction boom of the past seven or eight years has come to an end and that is causing great problems in rural areas. The live register figures would be much higher were it not for the fact that, as openly admitted by the Polish ambassador who visited this House today, most Polish construction workers have moved to the UK where there are jobs. Thankfully, once again the UK is acting as an escape valve for people from this country.

Irish workers need to be upskilled. Major job opportunities are not available to them. As Deputy O'Mahony said, broadband access is required in the smaller towns and not only in the so-called hubs and gateways. Smaller towns have their own identity and we need to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises as the engines of job growth there.

Companies have to cope with considerable red tape. A constituent contacted me today concerning a safe certificate which he had obtained in Australia but on returning here found it was not recognised. He has spent five weeks waiting to do such a course, although he has the offer of employment. A safe course here costs five times more than a similar course in Australia. I tabled a question on that aspect to the Minister today and I look forward to a reply to it. The layers of red tape with which small and medium-sized industries have to cope is a matter of concern. That aspect must be addressed.

We are all in this together in that we are all trying to create jobs. I travelled to Scotland in the past six months to encourage a call firm to locate in my town in the west. It has considered locating in the west where there are major opportunities in that it is a good place to live, there is a good standard of education and people there enjoy a good quality of life.

I compliment Enterprise Ireland and the people working on its behalf, but we need to attract small and medium-sized enterprises to locate in towns such as my town and other towns like it in my constituency of Roscommon-South Leitrim. Such industries create part of the identity of an area and help it to develop.

The announcement of new companies creating 1,000 jobs were welcome but we now need to focus much more on companies creating 50 to 100 jobs, which give an area an identity and help those areas where the building industry will no longer be prevalent for the next few years. The aspect on which we need to focus is on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. They need much more assistance and for the Government to address the level of red tape imposed. Otherwise the number of people unemployed will rise. There is a crisis and, as we are all in this together, we must ensure we solve it.

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