Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach does not seem to get it. Ever since the budget, one cannot turn a radio or television or open a newspaper but there is somebody from Fianna Fáil telling us that we have turned the corner and that recovery is about to happen. I wish that were the case but there is little sign of it.

Yesterday's Exchequer figures do not show many signs of recovery, even though they were for the two months leading into Christmas when there should have been an improvement. Today's unemployment figures show that almost 440,000 people are on the live register. According to the redundancy figures, 319 people have lost their jobs every day this year. None of those people will say there is a recovery.

It did not have to be like this. At the time the Labour Party proposed that a €1.15 billion jobs fund should be included in the budget. The Government did not do that. We argued that there should be a new national development plan with an emphasis on shovel ready projects such as schools, hospitals, public transport and perhaps some public works measures to deal with the flooding problems but we did not get that. The Government apparently reviewed the national development plan but it has not published it and we were told no new road project will start this year. Deputy Ciarán Lynch brought forward a Bill that would reduce commercial rents to give some help to those in the retail sector. The Government again would not accept it. I picked up my newspaper today and I saw that some of the property investors who may benefit from these high commercial rents will now benefit from interest free loans from Anglo Irish Bank. We argued that there should be investment in education and training and, as I pointed out to the Taoiseach yesterday, there are two applicants for every place being offered by the Central Applications Office this year.

It seems that what has been happening is that since the budget the Government parties have been basking in the praise they have received from some of the right wing economists embedded with them but we are seeing no action on the jobs front. The Taoiseach said it is not as bad as the figures are suggesting but it is worse. Does he know that one out of every three young men aged between 21 and 24 is on the dole? For how much longer does he think we can sustain that either economically or socially? When will we see a serious effort by the Government to get a jobs strategy in place, get the real economy moving again and get people back to work?

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