Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Government has always been in the business of creating jobs. Even at a time when we have had net unemployment, unfortunately, we saw in the two main sectors of the economy which are labour intensive there have been casualties but also jobs created. These sectors are the construction related sector, where we have seen the loss of 150,000, and the retail sector, which is also labour intensive. This has arisen because of the depletion in domestic consumption relative to the amount of consumption and demand that was being generated in better times. As Deputy Gilmore will be aware, this is not a static figure. Thankfully, 60% of those who, unfortunately, go on the unemployment register find employment within four to six months. Of course, the problem is ensuring we help the increasing number of persons who are more than 12 months out of work and we have done that by doubling the number of training and education places.

The elements of the jobs policy which have been consistent from the Government, even during difficult times, have been to drive exports and inward investment. Even if one looks at 2009, which was a difficult year in that there was a contraction of 9% in the Irish economy, the IDA successfully obtained 125 projects for the country. Some 70% of those projects were from companies which were already located in Ireland, which, I would suggest, was a strong vote of confidence by those companies in their experience here, both in terms of the quality of the people who are available and the means by which those companies have been able to flourish in Ireland because of the business-friendly environment we have been trying to create here over many years.

Increasing competitiveness and productivity has been another function. We have seen improvement in competitiveness. That has been referred to in economic studies that have been done since then. Another has been helping the unemployed through activation measures, employment schemes, training and upskilling. I could go through a range of them.

As Deputy Gilmore will be aware, there has been a major capital investment programme. That is supporting approximately 30,000 jobs per year. So far this year the IDA has secured 75 investments. Enterprise Ireland is supporting approximately 75 high-performance start-up companies in addition to what it is doing in terms of management support and enterprise support, and what we have done on the employment subsidy scheme in helping over 1,700 companies with maintaining approximately 104,000 jobs which were in viable but vulnerable businesses during that difficult downturn. That scheme would be claimed by many to have been a good initiative by Government in the context of the challenges that those companies were facing. Given how difficult it is to recreate jobs once they are lost, maintaining those people in employment and keeping those jobs going in those companies was a significant contribution last year by Government to maintaining employment. Similarly, there is the Enterprise Stabilisation Fund, from which almost 220 companies have benefited. I do not accept that the Government has been either indifferent or non-proactive on all it can do in these matters against a difficult background.

Taking one of the points Deputy Gilmore makes, I have seen the strategic investment bank proposal. I understand the proposal is to take €2 billion from the National Pensions Reserve Fund. It is not clear where the supplementary private capital comes from for that. Does it come from the capital base of our existing banking system? To what extent would that deplete our own system? It has not been made clear.

Deputy Gilmore often makes reference to 54 policy documents or initiatives that have been mentioned by the Labour Party under his leadership. I am not sure any of them have been costed.

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