John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this important topic. Last week, the House spent two days discussing the serious financial position of this country with agreement on all sides on the need to do something about it. There was agreement, too, to offer some hope to people on the employment front in order that any potential growth would not be stifled and that some jobs would be provided. Only a few hours after that debate news began to filter through from Castlebar about 200 job losses in Baxter Healthcare in coming months. These include jobs in administration, manufacturing and people employed on temporary contracts. Baxter has been a fantastic employer in County Mayo for the past 38 years and is committed to keeping the 900 jobs it still has in the county. It is very important that the Government puts everything in place, first, to find new jobs for the people being let go and, second, to support the jobs already in place.

I have a few suggestions. The four multinational companies that directly employ 3,000 people in the county, namely, Baxter Healthcare, Allergan in Westport, Hollister and Coca-Cola in Ballina, appealed to the Taoiseach at a meeting on the need to address the infrastructural deficit of access to and within County Mayo, with particular reference to the N5 and the N26. If I am correct, that meeting was arranged by the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary. One of the reasons given last week for the recent job losses was the need to improve cost competitiveness. One of the points made at that meeting concerned the terrible condition of the N5, the main access road to Mayo, and the urgent need for bypasses in Ballaghderreen and Longford. The leader of one of those companies stated directly to the Taoiseach that because of the poor condition of the road his company has to increase the quality of the packaging on its products in order to have them survive the journey to Dublin. This put €400,000 extra on the costs of one company. I have no doubt if that cost was not there cost competitiveness would be improved.

The availability of broadband in many areas in Mayo is totally deficient. A small business contacted me in recent weeks to say it would be in a position to employ five or six extra staff if it had acceptable broadband reception.

Why can small businesses, which employ 800,000 people in this country, not be supported in protecting the jobs they have and be incentivised to take on extra workers with PRSI relief, or in other ways? Another way would be to get rid of the stifling regulations that hinder and put obstacles in the way of small business. One need only look at any town centre throughout the country and in my county, Mayo.

I urge the Government to create the environment and provide the infrastructure - the N5, N26, broadband, the western rail corridor - to make Mayo an attractive location for inward investment for jobs in the county. Almost 13,000 people are on the live register at present in County Mayo. It needs action now.

I conclude by offering the Minister of State a direct quote from the chief executive officer of one of the companies that give substantial employment in Mayo, taken from a recent newspaper interview. The words are his, not mine.

There just doesn't seem to be any realisation at Government level that failure to address the N5 situation is putting jobs at risk. We are competing with plants in other parts of the world where there is excellent infrastructure and we are at a serious competitive disadvantage. If any one of these companies go they will not be replaced in this part of the world.

This is not a matter of whether we can afford to take on board the outlined suggestions. We cannot afford not to. Three thousand people employed directly provide €350 million annually to the Exchequer. We need to secure those jobs and improve the situation and attractiveness for new ones.

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