Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The Minister's contribution to the debate yesterday was measured in contrast with the contribution made this morning by the Minister of State. Given the week that is in it, I will continue in that tone.

Yesterday, the Minister drew attention to the fact that the number of people in employment has increased from 1 million to 2 million during the past ten years. I acknowledge that achievement. He also stated that while there will always be job losses, the key test is whether the Government can replace lost jobs with new ones. I agree that the role of Government is to create the right environment for employment rather than simply to create jobs.

When I hear Ministers and Deputies opposite speak about all that has been achieved I am concerned that they have become complacent or are in denial. Deputy Fleming said Fine Gael is scraping the bottom of the barrel with this motion and Deputy Collins said we are scaremongering. This is a real issue that cannot be ignored. The standardised unemployment rate has increased from 3.7% to 5.2% and is still rising. This is significant and cannot be denied, ignored or dismissed.

The number of people signing on since the current Government took office has increased by 20,000. One cannot simply dismiss this and deny or pretend a real problem does not exist. There has been much mention of the external challenges facing the economy. I recognise external challenges exist in respect of the falling dollar, rising oil prices and the credit crunch, but what we in this House should be discussing is the internal challenges facing us and why they have not been addressed by the Government, an issue about which Members opposite have had little to say. The Government appears to have no agenda or reforms on the horizon. The more reform needed, the more the Government runs away from it.

The Minister of State said that we had not mentioned small and medium enterprises, which is untrue. Most contributors from this side of the House spoke about small and medium enterprises. The matter is specifically referred to in the motion. He also stated that we are offering only negativity and not solutions. We have put forward many solutions and, perhaps, I can provide some more for the Minister of State. If he is genuinely interested in assisting small and medium sized enterprises he could bring about a renewed focus on regulation and reducing the cost of regulation.

The employment law compliance Bill will shortly come before the House. While I have not yet seen any regulatory impact assessments — I am not sure if they have been done — huge elements of that Bill will increase significantly the regulatory burden on business. The Government has, year on year, increased the amount of red tape in this area and made it more difficult and costly for small businesses to function. While large businesses can afford to employ a person whose job it is to ensure they are compliant with all the legislation, small businesses cannot afford to do so. Often, small businesses are forced to spend hours on end and enormous amounts of money to comply with the body of legislation that exists. This is an area which the Minister of State could address by, say, setting targets for these companies. The Minister promised several times to do this but has not yet done so. He could opt to use the standards cost model used in other countries for the purpose of assessment. The Government cannot run away from this issue.

The issue of inflation was not addressed by Members opposite. The Government has given no commitment to address the issue of local authority charges, the deregulation of waste collection, tolling or to reduce the cost of doing business, which is what is driving the SME sector down and jobs out of the country. Very little was said about upskilling, labour market reforms and infrastructure. For example, why are we not following the model used by Denmark, which has a much higher participation labour force than Ireland? While many Members on this side of the House spoke about broadband, Members on the opposite side had almost nothing to say about it.

The Minister referred yesterday to migration and green cards. The green card system is a start but it is not what we need. We need something much broader and more radical than the green card scheme if we are to attract highly skilled people into our economy. These are the types of solutions we would like to see. The Government cannot simply rest on its laurels and tell everyone how great matters have been for the past ten years because that is not the solution. The economy has changed and factors are different than they were even three or four years ago. What we need from Government is less denial and self-congratulation. It should take its head out of the sand and implement the policies needed to restore confidence to business. If it does that, we will support it.

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