Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

As my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, has said, we want to concentrate not only on sorting out the disastrous mess that Fianna Fáil created in the banks, but also on the future. That is why we need an institution that will focus on investment in small and medium sized enterprises, for innovation purposes and in public infrastructure. As Deputy Higgins has said, rather than pumping money into a failed banking system, we want some of the National Pensions Reserve Fund to be ring fenced for productive job creation and investment for the future. The strategic investment bank will be a commercially driven business bank and a public project financing powerhouse. It will be a key driver of green energy, microfinance and next generation broadband. This has been already tried elsewhere.

In the recent United Kingdom budget the British Chancellor for the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, proposed the establishment of a green investment bank to support investment in the eco-innovation and environmental sector. France last year launched its own strategic investment fund, which is tasked with taking long-term, minority stakes in French companies with a view to catalysing further private sector co-financing. As several of the Minister's Fianna Fáil colleagues remarked earlier, the Labour Party proposal is modelled on the highly successful German KfW Bank. It was established as part of the Marshall Plan and has played a leading role in supporting investment and development in Germany.

The Minister criticised KfW because it was established after the Second World War to help Germany out of a post-war situation. Our economy has just suffered a war from the banks. Like Germany after the war, we need to create new institutions which bring hope to our people and future development. Clement Atlee and the British Labour Party went into government after the war when their country was in ruins. They built the national health service and universal free secondary and primary education. Of course countries which face great challenges can decide to move on, but they require leadership. I am afraid the leadership that Cowen economics had given to this country is sadly lacking in any vision for the future. That is what the Labour Party proposal is about, namely, building this country up again and using our resources, energy and talents.

Over the past two years, the Labour Party has consistently called for investment in job creation to be put at the top of the agenda, but the Government cannot seem to get past bailing out Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. Fianna Fáil's ad hoc response to the crisis in Irish banking has been characterised by a string of broken promises. We were told that the bank guarantee would be the cheapest bank rescue in the world. This has turned out to be a disastrously bad call and has led to a seemingly endless series of bailouts and creeping nationalisation.

So far, we have seen no upside in the real economy. The credit famine continues. People continue to lose their jobs in record numbers and go on the unemployment rolls or emigrate. That is reality of where we are living in Ireland now. They have seen their hard-earned pension pots go up in smoke. Businesses are going to the wall because of lack of credit and a lack of demand from hard-pressed consumers. Most of all, we are blighted by soaring youth unemployment, in particular young men losing their jobs in the construction sector.

In just two short years, unemployment among those aged under 25 has more than doubled, from 28,700 to 66,800, two-thirds of whom are young men. This cohort makes up one in five people on the dole. When the world renowned economist, Professor Danny Blanchflower, spoke at the Dublin economic workshop some months ago, he talked about the devastating long-term effects that persistent youth unemployment can cause in society and for the economy. I know the Minister is an opera buff, but if he ever watched soaps-----

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