Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate, which concerns an issue that is affecting more and more people as the days go by. The loss of 10,000 jobs every month makes stark reading for those people who are affected by this recession. The last time the Labour Party was in power in 1997, we were creating 1,000 jobs a week.

The current Government appears asleep at the wheel. It seems the Government is more concerned with the bigwigs in the banks and how they will fare rather than the people who are losing their jobs on a daily basis. This includes the small industries which, it would appear, have very little support and for which little concern has been shown. The current job losses are taking place in dribs and drabs — one here, two there — in small businesses such as the local bakery or launderette. These job losses do not make the headlines and they are not headline news except, of course, for those who lose their jobs. It is a headline for them when they have to put bread on the table and pay the mortgage, or when they are in fear of having their house repossessed.

In the local social welfare offices that impact on my constituency, the following changes have occurred since May 2005. In Thomas Street, the increase in the live register is 790; in Ballyfermot, it is 612; and in Bishop Square, it is 1,736. These 3,000-plus people are concerned about the bankers and the millions they have received in payments and bonuses for a job that was badly done, because it is the bankers' mismanagement and cavalier attitude that has landed these unemployed people in a mess, with some of them about to lose their homes.

I spoke before about the cavalier attitude with regard to lending by some mortgage providers. For example, a woman on a community employment scheme was handed a mortgage of €150,000. Anybody who knows anything about CE schemes will know there was no commitment she would have a job after the three-year stint. Her home is about to be repossessed.

However annoyed ordinary people are with bankers, they are far more concerned that a solution be found to their immediate problems. They do not want to whinge about the bankers; they want something done. Instead of working to provide a solution, the former Taoiseach is acting as an adviser to hedge fund providers who are looking to take advantage of the situation in the Irish banks. We have a Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment who is paralysed into inactivity and has not shown any initiative in helping small and medium-sized businesses that are haemorrhaging jobs on a daily basis.

The Government has not recognised the true scale of the problem facing the country. In America, the key economic debate was on the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. Here in Ireland, it is between Mount Street and Main Street. Everyone I have met recently in my clinics or on the streets of Dublin South-Central seems to recognise the scale of the crisis facing us and the effect this has on small Irish businesses and the opportunities for employment.

Yesterday, I met two workers in my constituency who had worked for 30 years in the construction industry but have now been let go from good, well-paid jobs. On their own initiative, they are now doing garden maintenance and cleaning windows. They are obviously upset by this but the key point they made to me was that whatever meagre income they are making, it was because of their own initiative. There did not seem to be anybody to offer them a helping hand to set up this small business, which they had to do themselves.

We talk about a deterioration in competitiveness and its effect on business, yet the Government continues to take steps to make it more difficult for companies to trade. Bord Gáis and the ESB both secured significant price increases in September — 20% and 17.5%, respectively — yet despite falling costs, prices have not gone down for small businesses and savings are not being passed on to the customer in any real way.

The VAT increase of 0.5% will add further to price inflation at a time when the retail sector is already forecasting one of the worst years in history. The announcement with regard to the VAT cut in Northern Ireland makes Irish retailers even more uncompetitive and will only exacerbate the exodus of Irish shoppers across the Border this Christmas.

A decade after the sale of Eircom, the country continues to lack a decent and affordable broadband service for businesses to utilise, which is absolutely vital in today's business economy. Proper broadband penetration is as far away as ever in certain parts of the country. How can we expect business to thrive when it does not have access to basic facilities?

Most small businesses are operating on low profit margins yet they are very highly regulated. I have no problem with regulation, which is important, but the level of regulation and its cost to these industries is quite damaging and prohibitive for them.

The Labour Party calls on the Government to take a number of very basic, straightforward steps to tackle the lack of credit available to companies operating in Ireland. These common sense ideas should be taken on board immediately by the Minister and should not be allowed to drift.

On a positive note, I want to congratulate Ireland Inc. on having secured the European City of Science for Dublin in 2012. However, the one point I would make is that we must put in place the infrastructure to support start-up companies in science and technology if we believe in the mantra we all repeat regularly, namely, that science and technology is the way forward.

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