Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

While I recognise this is a start, it is a belated start. Will the Taoiseach confirm that 98.5% of the workforce is excluded from the Government's proposal to provide €250 million to protect 30,000 jobs? I agree this is a frustrating time for employers who find themselves in a position in which employees must be let go. If employees are let go and a company goes out of business, it is difficult to get the firm up and running again. Job retention should be as much a primary focus for the Government as job creation.

Will the Taoiseach provide a few practical examples of how the proposed initiative will work and indicate when it will start? An employer in Clara, Portlaoise or Tullamore with ten employees is not bringing in money because the economy has declined. He or she is unable to pay service providers because he or she does not have an income flow and he or she is strapped by the bank because he or she cannot obtain overdraft facilities which are probably being cut back. The employer will either have to ask for further wage cuts, introduce a three-day week or let staff go. How and when can an employer in the Taoiseach's home town or any other town apply for a subsidy under the Government's scheme to retain employees?

Arising from this, the Fine Gael Party has argued that it is wrong in a country of this size to have 400,000 people on the live register. The Taoiseach will be as aware as I am of the frustration, difficulties and anger experienced by those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of a job, in receipt of unemployment benefit or assistance and unable to find work. Is it the Government's intention to transfer the social welfare payments such persons would receive once they have been assessed directly to employers as a subsidy to take on such persons in particular positions? Will the social welfare payment be transferred to applicant X who is being let go or is out of a job? Is the scheme confined to only 30,000 employees in particular sectors?

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