Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The "Yes" side in the recent Lisbon treaty referendum told us we had a choice between ruin and recovery. Some drew an equation between the passage of Lisbon and the creation of jobs. Will the Cabinet committee on economic renewal now address the need to formulate a plan or strategy to seriously tackle growing unemployment levels in this State, given that the Government has not produced any such strategy since the general election of 2007 and certainly has not since the current economic crisis began?

Would the Taoiseach agree that it is nauseating to hear some economic commentators refer to the so-called first shoots of recovery as indicative of the clock having turned when they are actually referring to the international stock markets, that is, the very gambling dens which contributed heavily to the creation of the crisis in the first place? Would he accept that the real first shoots of recovery will not be international stock markets but the reversal of the trend of growing unemployment across this country? Unemployment currently stands at 440,000 people and this figure is projected to rise significantly over the coming months. Can he give the House an assurance that the Cabinet committee will be coming forward with proposals to tackle the unemployment crisis through real and imaginative initiatives that curtail the continuing haemorrhage of unemployment and create new and sustainable work opportunities?

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