Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Sadly, the reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9% will not have the dramatic impact the Government hopes it will have. We are, unfortunately, talking here about the background of the wider crisis. Ordinary working class people from Britain, those on whom we depend most to come here and share their hard earned wealth with us, are being mercilessly hammered by Prime Minister Cameron and the Lib-Tory Government by way of £81 billion in cuts to their living standards over the next four years. While this continues, those people will have difficulty coming here. Also Irish working people cannot as a result of cuts here afford to take holidays, thus generating the type of work we would like to achieve within the tourism industry.

The additional €29 million for modest projects, as announced in the jobs initiative, is completely incapable of meeting our needs, against a background of a €1.7 billion cut this year alone in the State capital spending programme. The Government desperately hopes that making these few cosmetic changes will assist the private sector in creating jobs. In this regard one needs only look to the private sector and the cataclysmic collapse of private investment. I could not believe my eyes when I read that the gross domestic fixed capital formation fell from €50 billion in 2007 to €17 billion in 2010. The Government hopes these minor adjustments, along with the austerity programme which is savaging the ability of our people to buy goods and services, will rectify the situation.

The only way we can create the massive number of jobs we need is through major programmes of public investment. The Minister did not link this initiative to the economic recovery initiative which mentions infrastructure such as energy, communications and water or the Labour Party's strategic investment bank proposal. What we need is massive investment in infrastructural projects that will create tens of thousands of jobs, with progressive taxation. We should stop the ruinous policy of repaying the bondholders and so forth.

Is cúis mhór díomá dom an tionscnamh seo maidir le postanna a chruthú. Faraor, tá sé soiléir nach bhfuil aon straitéis réadúil ag an Rialtas chun na mílte postanna atá ag teastáil a chruthú agus nach bhfuil an infheistíocht chuí á pleanáil nó á cur isteach a bheadh riachtanach chun an leibhéal fostaíochta atá riachtanach a chruthú. Dá bhrí sin, agus is mór an trua é seo, leanfaidh an géarchéim dífhostaíochta ar aghaidh leis an bhfulaingt agus an crá chroí a chiallaíonn seo dos na daoine atá dífhostaithe.

Dá bhrí sin, caithfimidne athrú straitéise amach is amach a chur i bhfeidhm agus na billiúin euro a chur isteach in infheistíocht phoiblí - straitéis dhifriúil ar fad seachas an méid atá annso ag an Rialtas - chun na postanna atá riachtanach a chur ar fáil. Sin an t-aon freagra atá ar an ngéarchéim seo.

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