Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

While the Minister and his Government remain obsessed with bailing out the banks and the developers, will he not agree that the greatest single social and economic challenge facing the country is to get nearly half a million people back to work? Will the Minister say what measures, if any, he proposes to stem the relentless rise in unemployment, under-employment and emigration? In case the Minister is not aware of it, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people on short weeks, three-day and four-day weeks. This is as a result of a desperate effort by small and medium-sized employers in particular, to hold on to people and to give them some work. I note from the figures provided by the Minister there is a significant outflow of emigration. The only reason the unemployment figures are slightly better than expected is because Fianna Fáil has returned the country to the valve of emigration. We are emigrating some of our best and brightest. What measures, if any, does the Government have to give hope to people that they can get employment in this country?

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