Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

With all due respect, I am not. For all the Minister of State's talk about innovation which is, naturally, welcome, this jobs initiative represents more of the same. It is most unambitious. There are 104,684 people jobless in Dublin alone and almost 500,000 throughout the State and the Government trumpets plans to spend paltry sums of money in response. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. As the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Simon Coveney, stated, politics and government are about choices. The Government has made a choice. Fine Gael and the Labour Party have found up to €24 billion of taxpayers' money for Anglo Irish Bank, but they have refused to invest even a fraction of this sum in a meaningful job creation and stimulus package. We all acknowledge a stimulus is necessary to deliver jobs in the domestic economy, improve public service provision and protect those in need.

By the Government's own admission - it is almost a boast at this stage - this initiative is a modest proposal. The logic seems to be that this is a first instalment and that it is all we can afford at present. I question this logic. If the Government is insistent, as it is, on sinking the State's resources into toxic banking institutions; pursuing the IMF-EU bailout package, as it is euphemistically called; and sucking billions of euro out of the domestic and real economy, how can it imagine for one second that in 12 or 18 months time it will be any more flathúlach or flush with money? Perhaps the real tragedy is that when the Government places job creation centre stage each time it comes to discuss job creation and providing a stimulus we continue to have the béal bocht. It will be the béal bocht because the Government has made other choices. Rather than provide a substantial stimulus, it chooses to invest more money in banks. Meaningful stimulus measures would not only put money back into the real economy, they would deliver a real social dividend in the longer term.

Yesterday the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, painted a picture of export-led recovery. He informed us this was in line with expectations. He knows full well that growth in the export sector has proved to be largely jobless. The truth is there will be no recovery, whatever about growth, without job creation. This means there is a need for a considered, intensive focus on the domestic economy, as well as substantial strategic investment. This initiative falls pitifully short of what in required. Also, it falls short in terms of the measures required to protect and create jobs in the private sector. Moreover, it ignores entirely the role of the State in tackling unemployment and boosting growth.

Although they are limited, I welcome the capital expenditure measures. Accelerating capital projects that are shovel-ready and labour intensive would create employment and deliver a social dividend. Unlike the Government, we sought an intensive focus on investment in this area, to which I have referred. We seek an investment of €1 billion of additional capital in infrastructural projects, €600 million in job creation and retention measures and €400 million in State child care services and the pre-education sector. Furthermore, we would target an additional €500 million towards families, making tax credits refundable and putting money back into people's pockets and, therefore, the real economy. These would be real, substantial cash investments. The money is available, but the choice has been made to dedicate the moneys elsewhere, not to provide a stimulus.

It is notable that the Government has resisted at all costs setting job creation targets. I heard one contributor suggest these would amount to nothing more than extravagant claims. Targets must be set since we need to set goals and benchmark achievements if we are serious about creating and retaining jobs.

The failure of Fine Gael and the Labour Party to include commercial semi-State bodies and local authorities in the labour activation measures is a missed opportunity. The number of unfinished apprenticeships represents one of the serious fall-outs for younger people following the collapse of the construction sector. However, the Government displays a limited world view and fails to recognise or harness the potential of the public sector or the commercial semi-State sector to address the problem. There is no reason these sectors cannot facilitate young apprentices to finish their training.

Last year the local government efficiency review group reported that staffing levels in local government had been reduced by 5,000 in the period between mid-2008 and early 2010. This represents a cut of 13% in the overall number of local government staff and staffing numbers have fallen again during the past 12 months.

Yesterday the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, promised a modest proposal to boost employment, with a focus on minor capital works, away from new build projects. However, no employment targets were set. Let us remember that not long ago Fine Gael promised voters a €7 billion investment in the State's water services, telecommunications infrastructure and energy industry. These investments have bitten the dust post the general election. No additional water infrastructural projects are included in the Government's proposals. It is satisfied, however, to impose a flat water tax of €175 on every household, but it will not invest additional resources in the State's water supply infrastructure and in the process create employment. The efficient supply of water to homes and industry is the responsibility of local authorities. Funding for maintaining and improving the water supply infrastructure comes from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. The relevant Ministers, Deputies Michael Noonan and Phil Hogan, are aware that Ireland lags behind its European counterparts in terms of its water systems. Despite this, there is to be no increase in the allocation of moneys to be spent on the water services investment programme which is already limited in its scope and will tackle only a mere 3% of the national water infrastructure network. The net result of the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour Party local government strategies is near nil investment, inadequate infrastructure and increased unemployment.

Some 2,000 public sector jobs have been cut in the first quarter of this year and a further 28,000 jobs are to go. That is some target. There is nothing like it mirrored in job creation. The Government could have ensured the employment of apprentices in public projects. It could make the employment of apprentices a condition in the awarding of public contracts to contractors to build public infrastructure. It could and should have done these things. However, it would require an actual investment in critical public infrastructure, something it is intent on shying away from. The Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan's promise of 1,000 specific skills long-term training places to be delivered by FÁS will stick in the craw of the unemployed in my constituency, a constituency which fought hard against FÁS's decisions to close two training centres, one in Jervis Street and the other in Cabra, one year and 18 months ago, respectively.

The approach to this initiative, as far as it relates to the public and semi-State sectors, is not so much labour intensive as Fine Gael intensive. The party's commitment to - for some it is almost an obsession - small government will drive down growth, deepen the recession and increase inequality. The Labour Party must step up to the plate and shout "Stop". The people cannot be asked to continually carry the can for bad banks and reckless lending practices by big financial institutions. The Government has a role to play in the creation and retention of jobs; we cannot afford to shy away from that fact. This Government has, however, shied away from it. That is a serious error and a missed opportunity.

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