Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

With the permission of the House I wish to share time with Deputy Paudie Coffey. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate and to welcome the announcement of my colleague, the Minister for Finance, of the jobs initiative. Given our current financial difficulties, it was necessary and prudent to frame the initiative on a budgetary neutral basis. I dearly wish it were not so but such is the scale of economic devastation wrought by the previous Government that we have little choice.

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