Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)

I said on my first day here that if I saw good things being done by the Government I would welcome them. I welcome the reduction in the air travel tax, which will cost €210 million. I also welcome the reduction in PRSI, which over the lifetime of the plan will cost €405 million, and the introduction of training places. However, having listened to Deputy Adams earlier, I must concur with him in his view that it seems more like a plan for a medium-sized town than for a country. Considering the number of unemployed people in the Shannon-side region, where I come from, it is clear that the number of training places would not be enough even for them. However, the Minister said it was a modest proposal, so that is fair enough.

There is one part of the initiative with which I seriously disagree, namely the plans for spending the €880 million that will be obtained from pension funds over the term of the programme. It is proposed to reduce VAT from 13.5% to 9%. If we had the money to do this, it would be of benefit. However, with the amount of money we are talking about - €880 million - there are so many better things that could have been done. I do not want to sound parochial, talking only about my constituency, but it is the area I understand best. If we were to break down that €880 million on a per-head-of-population basis, it would mean that over the term of the jobs initiative, we could provide €17.6 million to my constituency to help develop projects. How would this money be distributed? It could be handed out through the development companies. There was great hurrah a couple of years ago when the Leader companies joined together and formed the Roscommon Integrated Development Company, and €12.8 million was available over a three-year period. We could double that amount.

What would we spend it on? In areas such as the one I come from, we could increase employment by developing products that we currently use but that are produced outside the area. With this money, we could develop six micro-breweries in my constituency with no problem. We could set up markets in every town with a population of 1,000 or more. What benefit would that have? I did a study in advance of the general election in which I discovered that in 2010, people in my constituency spent €13.5 million on draught beer and stout and €9 million on fruit and vegetables. Of course we could never produce all that locally but if we produced 50% of it locally it would introduce an extra €14 million into our economy.

Benefits to tourism have been mentioned. We could also benefit tourism by developing a product. In my constituency, we have easy access to Sligo, Galway and Knock airports, and there are two train lines. We have eight golf courses. We have the longest border with the mightiest river in Great Britain and Ireland, and we could develop a serious tourism product based on this. We could have used that money to put advertisements in Stansted Airport. We could have used it to develop facilities such as Castlerea swimming pool, which would have cost only €0.5 million, would have employed ten people for the year and would attract more tourists to the area. Unfortunately, the Government has made a decision that instead of doing that, it will reduce the price of a can of Coca-Cola by about 10 cent and entrance into a cinema by 50 cent - which would be great if we had enough money to do so. However, this pool of money should have been used to develop products and services in my area and areas all over the country, which would have been of benefit to us.

While it might sound parochial for me to talk about tourism just in my area, there are many other areas that have similar needs. When we talk about tourism, we nearly always talk about Galway, Kerry, Dublin and all the clichéd places. These are great places to visit but there are also wonderful places such as the area I come from where we could create jobs out of a tourism industry.

I am disappointed that there was no mention of rates in this initiative. I have a proposal for reducing rates. We could get rid of 75% of the glorified ribbon-cutters otherwise known as county councillors from around the country and strip out the level of director of services from every council in the country. I can easily prove that rates could be reduced in my area by 25%, making it more viable for people to go into business. However, I have not seen anything like this.

The initiative is a modest proposal because of a shortage of money but it could have been a wonderful proposal. Instead of reducing the price of a can of Coca-Cola, we could have had, in three years' time, six new micro-breweries in County Roscommon and a market in every decent-sized town in the area, with our farmers selling their produce directly to people. A farmer who earned money from this could then have a door hung or a house painted, giving money to more people, who would then spend it on cabbage and potatoes to eat, and the money would go around. Unfortunately, the Government has gone for something very simple which has not been thought out. Is there any chance that the Government would leave the price of a can of Coca-Cola or a cinema ticket the same in my constituency and give us the €17.6 million instead? We will drive job creation in our area. That is how to do it.

See this speech in context