Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

The current global economic crisis is adversely impacting on the unemployment levels across almost all advanced economies. According to the OECD, since December 2007 there has been an increase in unemployment of 16 million people, bringing the present OECD total to almost 46 million people unemployed.

It is expected there will be further increases in unemployment in the OECD in 2010, as employment growth tends to lag behind economic activity. It is, therefore, not expected that significant employment growth will occur next year in Ireland. The Department of Finance pre-budget outlook forecasts the unemployment rate in 2010 to average about 13.75%.

However, despite these projections it is worth noting that considerable churn is still evident in the Irish labour market. Over the past 12 months, more than 150,500 people have left the live register to take up employment. The Department of Finance projections for next year do not include a sectoral breakdown of employment.

The Government is taking specific measures to ensure job retention and job creation are maximised. Enterprise Ireland has prepared a new recovery strategy to assist its clients. This strategy refocuses Enterprise Ireland's efforts in strengthening and sustaining companies of strategic importance through a range of initiatives focused on the needs of their client base.

The enterprise stabilisation fund was launched earlier this year. It supplies direct financial support to internationally trading enterprises that are investing in cost reduction or other measures to gain sales in overseas markets. Client companies of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Údarás na Gaeltachta and Shannon Development across all sectors in manufacturing and internationally traded services are eligible to apply. Enterprise Ireland has approved approximately €56 million of which €50 million will be paid out this year. To date, 140 companies have been approved to date to receive funding.

The employment subsidy scheme has been introduced to support the maintenance of vulnerable jobs and prevent people from being made redundant in the challenging national and global economic environment. The first call of the scheme will provide subsidies directly for 7,773 jobs. In addition, firms have committed to retain a further 36,260 jobs. This means a total of just over 44,000 jobs will be retained as a result of the first call of the scheme, at a cost of €70 million over 2009 and 2010.

I have decided to have a second broader call for applications with extended eligibility criteria open to both exporting and non-exporting firms. It will be open to many companies not eligible to apply for the first and will have a budget of €65 million.

As part of a sustained, co-ordinated and integrated approach to job search, training, education and work placement supports, I have doubled the provision of training and work experience places managed by FÁS to more than 130,000. The referral capacity of FÁS employment services from the Department of Social and Family Affairs has been increased to 147,000 persons in 2009.

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