Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett and his colleagues might be disturbed to note that when he was speaking I was in mind of something President Barack Obama said. The title of his book is "The Audacity of Hope". From listening to the contributions of those speakers, it strike me that we are approaching the point where there is almost something audacious about saying that we have hope, about believing that we can make a difference and about stating that the economy is still rich in possibility and still has many options. The job of this Government is to be alive to these possibilities and to do all it can to put in place measures to allow people to fulfil their potential. This is what the jobs initiative is all about.

Let us recap briefly some elements of the jobs initiative. We will abolish a tax, we will halve another tax and we will significantly reduce another tax, the rate of VAT, on labour intensive industries. A colleague of mine, Senator Michael D'Arcy, summed up the matter well when he stated that there is much focus on the green economy and the smart economy but we must have greater focus on the cash economy, that is to say, the money people are spending today, its potential and the money people have in their bank accounts. They need confidence to spend it and we need the ability to get new people into the State to spend the money they have. This is the reason the initiative should be supported.

As I was listening to some speakers earlier today I was reminded of the dreariness of Opposition, wherein, no matter how good the ideas, one was compelled at times to stand up and oppose them. I am certain that in the case of many of the ideas these speakers were criticising, including the national internship programme and the increased spend on schools, the same speakers will have been contacting people in their constituencies to let them know of the schemes and will have contacted schools to ensure they were aware of the potential expenditure that could be coming their way.

The Government is faced with an Opposition divided. One part is made up of the party that led the State to the brink and the other part with individuals and some parties that are determined to push the State over that brink. The Government will not allow either to happen. In her speech, the Minister, Deputy Burton, referred to the fact that 80,000 people under the age of 25 years of age are without a job in this State. There are 80,000 reasons to support this initiative, to ensure the money is well spent and delivered against the targets. Deputy Donnelly made a good point in this regard: we must understand the targets and we must ensure they are verified.

Two initiatives on which the Government is working in the longer term will supplement this work. We must continue to do all we can to tackle the issue of rent reviews. Unless we do this the cost of doing business in Ireland will not fall aggressively and quickly. We must reduce the cost of failure by reforming and changing bankruptcy laws in the State. We must reduce the costs associated with people caught up in unanticipated difficulties when they start a business and who are not allowed start all over again. This work, which is longer-term in nature and is perhaps somewhat softer in comparison to the harder plans announced yesterday, will provide the framework within which the Government will tackle the greatest social crisis we face, that is to say, the hundreds of thousands of people who are unemployed and the vast level of stress and difficulty this is causing their families.

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