Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I commend my colleague, Deputy Willie Penrose, for tabling this motion. I sat beside him last night during his opening contribution. He spoke about the real effect of the downturn on his community. He spoke about a particular enterprise in County Westmeath and the effect on the man running it and on the entire community. All of us in the House represent such communities. They look to us to do something practical about the problems they see all around them. This is why we tabled this motion.

On many occasions, we have spoken about large job losses in our constituencies. I have spoken about concerns in companies such as Dell, which is a large employer in my constituency, and other companies where we have seen 100 or 200 jobs lost. Today, an announcement was made of a total of 240 job losses in west Limerick, Kilkenny and Galway. Along with these large announcements are the small numbers of jobs being lost in small businesses throughout the country. These are having a devastating effect on the communities concerned.

By and large, this involves viable businesses which are having problems with cash flow whereby because of the recession they cannot get access to credit. Realistically, these companies will be up and running and viable again in whatever length of time it takes to come out of the recession. In the European Union it is suggested that within a year or two we should be out of the recession provided the proper action is taken by governments of the European Union. It is a real contrast to what is going on in Europe to see what is happening here. We have a total lack of action and leadership from our Government.

Prior to coming to the House this evening I was watching the news at 6 p.m. I saw Mr. Barroso speaking on behalf of the European Union about a €200 billion fund which he urged member states to use to start their economies working and move out of recession. Immediately afterwards, the RTE correspondent stated that Ireland will not use this fund because we have overspent or the Government does not want to use it. It seems crazy that for a country which was so rich so recently we are now being told that we will not participate in this European attempt to climb out of the recession. We are not seeing any positive measures coming from the Government that will pull us out of recession and create the type of positive climate that will make people believe in Irish industries and companies. We should have already drawn down money from the small business operational fund, to which the Labour Party's motion refers specifically.

All we can see is the Government standing idly by stating it hopes the banks will decide to use the fund. We need something more proactive than this. I suggest the credit unions might draw down this fund or that the Government should do so. Small businesses in every corner of the country are looking for somebody to take action and looking to the Government. We, in Opposition, tabled this motion to encourage the Government to take action.

We see small businesses which cannot get access to perhaps €10,000 or a small amount of money in terms of cash flow. However, €500 billion is guaranteed to the banks. Despite this, there does not seem to be any way in which the Government feels it can tell the banks to do something. My colleague, Deputy Rabbitte, referred to the fact that the banks are being extremely prudent now when they were anything but prudent in the recent past when they were profligately lending in all directions without any sense of proportion. Suddenly, they have become extremely prudent and will not lend to viable small businesses in all of our constituencies throughout the country.

We see how this affects real people. I know people who are preparing to emigrate and trying to figure out how they will rent out the house, what they will do with the dog and how will they afford to get to the country where they hope they might be able to get work. We see other people trying to figure out how they will pay their mortgages when their jobs are gone. I see small business people who cannot even get unemployment benefit because they are told on the basis of their tax figures from last year they had a good income. It is not accepted that now they have no income and they are finding it extremely difficult to get basic unemployment assistance. The real world is demanding that action is taken. I hope this motion is a catalyst for the Government to take the type of action needed.

My colleague, Deputy Upton, referred to the role of science. I do not think people with good ideas receive the type of practical support that is needed and I want to cite one example from my constituency. Two young men, the Collison brothers, one of whom won the Young Scientist of the Year award a couple of years ago, came up with a great idea. However, they could not get funding in Ireland and went to Silicon Valley. Their company is now worth more than $1 million.

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