Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)

It is timely and appropriate that we are discussing this matter in the Dáil on a day when the CSO published its unemployment report and we have broken through the psychological glass ceiling with unemployment at 252,000. As Deputy Connaughton said, 100,000 people have been made unemployed since the last election when the current Government took over with the answer to everything. As far as unemployment is concerned, the Government has the answer to nothing.

I remember a predecessor of the Minister of State in Cork, a famous politician and leader of the Fianna Fáil party, Jack Lynch, said on radio one afternoon that any Government presiding over unemployment of 100,000 or more should not be in office. It is now two and a half times that.

In Donegal, between September 2007 and September 2008 unemployment rose from 8,370 to 12,550 according to figures supplied by the CSO. This represents an unbelievable increase of 50%. Our industrial base has been eroded in Donegal these last ten years. We have lost 12,000 industrial jobs. There is a sad litany of job losses: Fruit of the Loom, which straddles the constituencies of both Deputy McHugh and I, Hospira in Donegal town, Parian China, BMR and UNIFY in Letterkenny, Dianorm, RMT, Europlast, Herdsman's in the Finn Valley and Nena Models. The list is endless. What will we do to address these major job losses? Deputy O'Rourke is not in the Chamber now.

Very often, when we speak of job losses we say they are statistics but behind every job loss there is a sad story. The person might be the only bread winner in the family, a widow or someone supporting an extended family. The pain, loss of self-esteem and what accompanies the loss of a job is unspeakable sadness. That is the tragic human story behind the loss of every job. In the last year in Donegal there were 4,000 jobs lost.

I implore the Minister to ensure roads and broadband infrastructure are upgraded. I was disappointed to hear that the roll-out of broadband is postponed from 2008 to 2009 to 2010. I was almost devastated when the capital budget for Údarás na Gaeltachta, one of the major job creating agencies in Donegal, was slashed. This will have severe implications for jobs in the area I represent. Something must be done for small industries, such as garages and other service providers, who are at their wits' end. There is a shortage of capital and they are at the point of going under. Unless something is done or there is a positive response from the Government we will have many more such job losses in the coming months. Today we see the figure of 252,000 and shortly after Christmas and the new year that could increase to 300,000 or more. We are about to go over the precipice.

There is so much more we could say. The situation is critical in Donegal, with twice the national level of unemployment. The Tánaiste is in the US this week and I hope she has something for the Irish economy when she comes back, particularly for Donegal and most particularly for her constituency of Donegal South-West.

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