Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As I said to Deputy Ó Caoláin, the issue is that there are a number of practical steps being taken in a range of areas to assist businesses and assist in the creation of jobs, quite apart from the macro-economic imperative of getting our public finances in order. There are significant funds available. With regard to developing the tourism product, the allocations have been trebled. Over €130 million was allocated to support viable but vulnerable industries. Over €130 million was allocated for the retrofitting scheme. Some 60,000 homes have been retrofitted under the scheme during 2010. That is not an insignificant amount of work when one considers that, in a normal construction era, 30,000 to 40,000 units per annum would be regarded as the normal demand. This would be the case in more normal times, such as those before what happened in the noughties, that is, between 2000 and 2010. There is now a surfeit of housing capacity.

Many people formerly in the construction sector are now registered under the energy efficiency schemes. One sees many of them going about their business in vans all over the country. People are getting work under the schemes and more can be done in this area. I have been asking what we can do to assist the construction sector bearing in mind that there is a surfeit of homes. The energy efficiency area is an obvious area and the allocation for this area is not insignificant. The money allocated is money that would never have been allocated, even during better times.

There is a range of actions. The Deputy asked about the stimulus package. The stimulus package provided in other European economies had an impact amounting to approximately 2%. We are providing, through our capital investment programme, a stimulus of between 4% and 5%, all of which is borrowed money. However, we are providing it because we want to invest for the future. We are investing in our infrastructure, not only our physical infrastructure but also our health and education infrastructures, in an unprecedented way. This has been the case even in the past three years, despite the economic difficulties. There is a need and demand for this. The investment in third and fourth level education has been hugely significant, including in Science Foundation Ireland. In the arts, I recently attended the opening of the centre for performing arts at the University of Limerick, a magnificent new addition to the college's infrastructure. I congratulate Micheál Ó Súilleabháin and the others involved in that initiative. Across the board an effort is being made whereby public investment is seeking not to replace but to make up in some respects for the loss of private sector investment in some of those areas which were labour intensive. We are doing that and the evidence is there to be seen. In terms of the multi-annual investment programmes, there is talk of how sceptical people are in regard to jobs targets, even though previous jobs targets were met. In regard to the national motorway system, for example, I recall there were many who doubted very much that it would happen. In fairness to the NRA, it built up the capacity and expertise and delivered on time and within budget and, in many cases, before time and within budget.

There are things that are being successfully achieved. Yes, there are challenges we must face up to. Yes, there are more initiatives we must look to in terms of work placement, helping graduates who are unemployed and so on. We will work on these issues. It cannot be said that the Government is not proactive in this area. We are being proactive in every way we possibly can. However, at the end of the day, we have to continue with the overall macro-economic policy which has stabilised the economy this year and stabilised unemployment to a greater extent.

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