Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle as ucht seans a thabhairt dom labhairt sa díospóireacht tábhachtach seo. Tá cursaí airgeadais na tíre go huafásach ag an nóiméad. Tá a fhios ag cách conas a tharla sé sin. B'fhéidir go dtógfaidh mé an seans seo chun leigheas nó dhó ar an gcruachás ina bhfuil an tír seo a mholadh.

I do not propose to describe the situation in which the country finds itself, or to rehearse all of the mistakes made by Fianna Fáil since coming into Government in 1997 when it inherited an economy producing 1,000 jobs per week in export-led ventures. The problems that arose and the mistakes made are all too well known. To say that there is a major crisis in the country's finances is to put it mildly. The announcement on banking by the Minister for Finance on 30 September 2010 underlined the extent of the problem. There are major concerns now about the country going back to the bond markets in January and how the markets will react in terms of purchasing Irish bonds.

There have been reports recently of what could be a win-win situation for the Exchequer and the ailing private pension schemes in the country. It is reported that up to €20 billion from the private pension schemes is available for investment in State bonds. If that €20 billion, or a large portion of it, was invested in State bonds it would ease the national debt crisis and help the troubled pension schemes return to solvency. The funds in the pension schemes are invested in bonds issued by eurozone Governments, mainly Germany and France. However, the very low yields on these bonds, somewhere between 2% and 3%, has caused many of the pension funds to move into deficit.

According to the Pensions Board, 75% of the country's defined benefit pension schemes are in deficit. The liabilities of the schemes was €45 billion at the end of 2008 but the assets to meet the liabilities are of the order of €32 billion. This means there is a substantial €13 billion gap, and regulators have given the pension schemes until the end of November to submit plans for tackling the problem. The problem of the pensions fund needs to be immediately addressed.

I understand that representatives of the pension industry have met officials in the Department of Finance with a view to switching more of their reserves into Irish bonds, with the yields on ten year bonds now hitting 7%. The facilitating by the Department of Finance of the switching of funds would seem to me to be very well worth considering positively. I understand there is considerable support for switching the pension scheme funds to Irish bonds but that the industry is seeking further guarantees. I call on the Minister and the Government to look at this issue as positively as possible.

At the time Waterford Crystal went into receivership, it was starkly and forcibly brought home to me that there is a major need for a pension security fund to be put in place. There is such a scheme in Britain but because there no such scheme in Ireland pensioners remain vulnerable. Although to some extent this is a separate issue, and one which would require that the fund be self-financing, it is an urgent matter and is directly connected with the proposal for the pensions industry to move major funds into Irish Government bonds issued by the National Treasury Management Agency. This would also have the effect of securing the future of pensioners and would reduce the pressure on employers to come up with additional funds to plug the shortfalls in their pension schemes.

A forecast based on calculations made last February reckons that investing in high yield Irish bonds would increase the value of pension funds from 40 cent to 60 cent in the euro for a typical pension scheme. Irish Government bonds are yielding far more now than they did last February. This proposal has the attraction of using the fallout from one major national problem to substantially solve another. I realise technical issues are involved and that issues need to be resolved but surely it makes very good sense to proceed down this road quickly given the possibilities that may arise when the pension funds go back to the regulators with their plans for returning their funds to solvency. The situation where pension funds are terminated and thereby people lose their rights, or their rights are substantially reduced or their return is substantially reduced, should be avoided at all costs. This has a bearing on the level of concern about how the markets will react when the Government goes back to the bond markets after Christmas.

The first priority, in terms of solving the financial crisis which presently faces the country is job creation. Recently, I was made aware of the following situation in my constituency by an employer in the tree servicing industry who took on five persons in 2009, three of whom were off the live register and two of whom had lost their jobs recently and moved back into employment with this employer. He met a person who was an unemployed tradesman and this person asked him for employment. He was impressed by the man and decided to take him on. This involved the young man having to undertake a course because he could not enter the industry without this basic qualification. The employer paid £912 to bring in a trainer and an assessor from Northern Ireland so that the person involved could get a City & Guilds qualification and thereby be qualified to enter the industry. The course took one week and when the person taking the course went to collect the jobseeker's allowance with a letter from his employer outlining that he had been training, he was denied it.

This is appalling. Surely all Departments and State agencies should be assisting in every possible way the unemployed to get employment. Employment in the tree serving industry entails hard work. It is difficult work, but it pays quite well. I have been informed by the employer concerned that there is potential to create some 1,500 jobs in this sector nationally but that employers need assistance to cover the basic training costs and this is not forthcoming from the Government. Investment in job creation is what the Government must prioritise.

There is a considerable need to set up a university in my area of the south east. The south east is under performing in many ways and there is a need to provide within the region the research and development facilities, the graduate cohort and the fourth level education so that it can compete for the kind of employment that is coming on stream. In a recent letter to me, Mr. Barry O'Leary, chief executive, IDA Ireland, referring to potential companies, stated that IDA Ireland is fully committed to securing a balanced and regional development which includes the south east region, that the challenge is achieving an even spread of investment because the intensification of the sophistication of investments increases, and that they require a high concentration of a highly qualified and educated workforce, supporting infrastructure and high-level business services. Surely this highlights the urgent need for a university of the south east, with its hub campus in Waterford but with other campuses in other counties in the region.

There are other ways that the country can be made more competitive. The Government, through its agencies, must tackle the sheltered sectors of the economy. Whereas the professions have been hit hard there is the issue of the fees that are charged at the highest levels within the professions. This is an appalling inequity.

As we deal with our constituencies and we look at the national question, there are so many issues that require resolution. We can continually and rightly blame the Government but the greatest blame that rests with the Government is its total inaction in dealing with the issues and problems in the economy that so many people are facing.

One problem I encounter on a regular basis is the area of mortgages. There are so many people who now have very difficult problems with their mortgages. There is a particular issue that keeps coming back to me, that is, how the system treats the self-employed who become unemployed and the difficulty this particular sector encounters in acquiring social welfare payments. I refer to persons who have paid their taxes, who have employed others and who now have fallen on bad times. The fact that those who apply for jobseeker's allowance are assessed on their income in 2008 rather than their income last year and in the current year is something that needs to be seriously and immediately addressed. The mortgage situation, which I mentioned earlier, and the restrictions on access to the mortgage subsidy, are matters that need to be revised and dealt with quickly.

Clean energy is an area which the Government is not addressing sufficiently. A representative of Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, whom I listened to lecturing recently, put it that over a 15 year period 100,000 jobs can be created in Ireland based on clean energy. The Government, unfortunately, not only on this front but on so many fronts, appears to be paralysed in terms of ideas and initiatives.

There is no denying we are in a very difficult situation, albeit one created in the main by this Government but we will not get out of it unless we tackle it. There is still some doubt as to the full extent of the banking debt. We got the figures on 30 September and the measures being put in place to deal with that have been rehearsed to us but there is still the issue of credit for small businesses. The public service system, which is not fast enough in terms of delivery and is tied up in all sorts of red tape, is not fit for purpose to deal with the current economic situation. There are many fine people working in the public service but their ability is being under-utilised because they are locked in with methodologies and systems that give no scope for exercising in full the many abilities they possess. What is the Government doing to address this?

We need to see a great deal more internship schemes. It is frightening the number of people who have succeeded in getting good third level qualifications, cannot get employment and are leaving our shores. Unfortunately many of them will not return. Certainly, they will not return in the short term.

New graduates need to get job experience. There is little scope for them to acquire that. If a new graduate seeks employment, one of the first questions he or she will be asked is what practical experience he or she has. There is a major need for the introduction of a widespread internship scheme across the economy in the public and private sector. We would not want such a scheme to be exploited by unscrupulous employers who might use it to replace existing employees or not employ people on a full-time basis. Graduates could be taken on, retain their social welfare benefit with a top up to some level, and assigned to a position where they would do real work which would expand their qualifications, give them experience in the field and make them more fit for purpose.

The basic issue of the dignity of work, namely, having a reason to get out of bed in the morning, feeling that one is useful and is doing a useful job on behalf of the community, needs to be considered in this context. It is terribly demoralising to be looking for employment when there are no jobs. When people apply for jobs, they get refusals or do not get any response, they are not called for any interviews and then they begin to doubt themselves. Therefore, it is important for new graduates to be in the workplace, doing something useful, albeit on a scheme that is temporary in nature because of the current economic circumstances.

We have to do much more than talk about our great potential - our magnificent young educated workforce, which we still have although many young people are now leaving the country. We must show our young people that we value them by giving them an opportunity to get into the workplace where they can develop their skills, gain experience and avail of opportunities when the upturn comes. We need to show them they are a useful part of the economy.

I encourage the Government to get down to the job of turning things around on the jobs front. A figure that sticks out in everybody's mind is that for everyone who comes off the live register there will be a saving in terms of welfare benefit and a recoupment in tax payment and the gain to the Exchequer will be approximately €20,000 per year.

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