Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)

The loss of jobs in the economy exercises every member of the Labour Party, which has prepared a comprehensive document entitled, Labour's New Deal: Key Proposals for Economic Recovery. The proposals constitute a stimulus package to try to reflate the economy and address some of the issues arising, particularly in the employment area, while recognising the deep human and social cost of rising unemployment.

Next year, the number of people out of work is likely to reach 300,000, a figure that has not been reached since the 1980s. Surely this sounds a wake-up call for the Government. One would need to have one's head in the sand not to be aware that the number of redundancies has increased by 50% in the past year, 700 people are losing their jobs every week and 40,000 jobs will be lost in the building sector next year. People are moving to the Middle East and Australia to seek employment. Will we give people the one-way ticket many of my relatives had to take in the 1950s? Will that be the Government's badge of honour?

I am concerned about small and medium size enterprises, about which I have spoken in the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. This is the area on which we should focus. I am grateful that foreign direct investment will continue and a number of projects are in the pipeline and I acknowledge the hard work being done by Mr. Frank Ryan and his colleagues.

Surely credit is the oxygen of small businesses. Unfortunately, however, the small business sector believes the Government is standing idly by while it is being choked to death.

See this speech in context