Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

That is hopelessly depressing for people who are out of work. Effectively what the Taoiseach stated is that when everything else is fixed people might get back into work. The Government keeps telling us that we have turned the corner. From the Taoiseach's reply, it seems that as far as people who are out of work are concerned the only turning the Government has done is turning its back on them.

The Taoiseach mentioned the Labour Party's proposals. We have been advocating several proposals to the Taoiseach on actively getting people back to work. We proposed a strategic investment bank which would get our economy moving again but he has not done anything about that. We proposed a jobs fund to actively get people back into employment.

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