Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I sincerely wish the Government had produced a substantial plan. We all have wishes in this matter and I do not doubt the sincerity of many of those on the Government benches on this.

It is very important that we remember that we must return to our respective constituencies from this place of engagement. Our constituents are asking us to give them hope and to point to a viable way forward. It is so sad so many of our respective constituents, those in each of our areas of representation, are currently unemployed and many others have been forced to leave our shores in recent years.

This jobs initiative, so called, is not going to create that hope. It does not spell out a viable way forward. I wish the Government had come forward with a plan we could bring to struggling small and medium-sized businesses to say here are the measures to help them survive and thrive, to access the credit they so essentially need in so many cases today and to start to rebuild and look forward to the future with confidence.

Instead, I have to say this plan is very disappointing and I do not believe for a moment that view is confined to the Opposition benches. After all the promises of a real jobs strategy from both Fine Gael and Labour in the general election, a view put forward by their candidates and canvassers so strongly because the people articulating it believed it themselves, if this is a plan for jobs, they and we must ask where the targets are in the plan. Where are the targets in terms of numbers and the types of jobs that will be created as a result? Fine Gael and Labour promised during the election a plan to create 100,000 jobs and 60,000 training places. Those commitments have now disappeared because they are certainly not in this initial effort.

The billions that will be required to stimulate growth in our economy have also disappeared, something we have referred to here ad nauseam, those billions that have disappeared into the banking black hole courtesy, clearly, of the disastrous banking policy of the last Government and, sadly, continued by this coalition Government.

I acknowledge this evening that there are some positive proposals in this jobs initiative but they are, with respect, much too thin and much too weak. They are very weak; this is a very poor effort when we remember there are almost 500,000 people unemployed in this State. Let us not forget, as some all too readily do, the many more tens of thousands, particularly of our young people, who have already left our shores and who on their return might very well find themselves in the next number of years being treated as non-persons in their own country courtesy of the crazy and maddening habitual residency clause regulations. I have no doubt that colleague Deputies on the Government benches are at least as familiar with all of that as I am in terms of their constituents' needs.

The Government plans to spend €135 million on capital projects but €106 million of this is from existing allocations. That is only an additional €29 million in terms of this set of proposals. It is our strong belief that the Government should invest in this year €2 billion directly from the National Pensions Reserve Fund while there is still a crumb in it into a real job retention and creation plan. This is something we have proposed and that others have articulated.

The Government has a duty to give real hope to the unemployed and real substance to any jobs initiative it would bring forward. We need schools, improved hospitals, primary care centres and child care facilities. We have tens of thousands of unemployed people who have the skills to build these essential resources and infrastructural needs, to maintain them and to staff them. Government, however, continues to pour the billions required to develop all of these essential needs into zombie banks.

At best, I believe the jobs plan will be jobs neutral. I have to say that with great sadness because it strikes me that it has the potential to cost jobs because an incentive has been presented to drive down already low wages and the risk clearly will be that it will leave people with less money to spend. The threatened attack on long-standing wage agreements must be resisted. There are many people in Fine Gael who do not hold that view but the Labour Party representatives would be strong advocates and I appeal to them, first and foremost. How can they possibly let this happen? This is another imposition on us from the IMF-EU deal. It will primarily affect low paid workers in areas such as retail, construction, catering, hotels and the tourism industry.

I call on the Government to resist the demands of certain employers to drive down the wages of these workers. This will not create jobs, make no mistake, it will cost jobs and compound the poverty that is already so much in evidence across this country. It will reduce or eliminate the expendable income of tens of thousands of workers and thus further depress the economy and the local and regional economies we come from.

In my own constituency, there are just short of 14,000 people on the live register in counties Cavan and Monaghan. In the very week the Government has announced this jobs plan, the services available for those people are being placed under threat. I ask the Government to hear me on this because it is not the first time that something that has visited my constituency became a template for other locations around the country. Last Friday, staff in the Monaghan FÁS office were told by regional managers under the direction of FÁS head office that there is potential - as they described it - for temporary redeployment of all staff from the Monaghan office to other centres across the region, in Cavan, Drogheda, Dundalk and Navan. This proposed redeployment is for the summer months at the same time as school-leavers are seeking assistance in finding work or further training, when summer jobs become available and people generally require assistance in accessing them. This is not the formula to deal with annual leave needs or any other cost-cutting requirements which FÁS must address. The FÁS staff in Monaghan have given a commitment to flexible working and co-ordination of leave over the summer months in order to keep the office open. I urge FÁS head office to take up that offer from the staff which is very generous and responsible. Monaghan Town Council met last evening in emergency session on the issue. It has requested a meeting with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, on this matter. I urge her to accommodate that meeting and I hope she will take note of my appeal. I hope the Government parties will revisit their proposals in this jobs initiative and come forward with a set of proposals which really will allow us to go back to where we come from with a message of hope. Surely this is what every one of us must want to deliver.

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