Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)

This is a very important Bill that has been brought to the House just two months after the new Government was put in place. It is important to stress that Governments do not create jobs. They can create targets for job creation over the term of a Government but they do not necessarily create specific jobs through the creation of proposals. All a Government can do is to create the environment in which other people can create jobs. It is the case that we have been through 14 years where the outgoing Government did not bother with that objective and failed to deliver imaginative proposals that would allow the people of our country, who have traditionally proven themselves to be extremely innovative, to create work for themselves and for others. What we are seeing today is a small step towards turning our country around and delivering a new environment for the people to create employment.

Many Opposition speakers referred to a very broad range of the issues that face the country whereas the Bill is targeted and specific legislation aimed at addressing a number of the proposals announced in the jobs initiative some weeks ago. Deputy Higgins referred to T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Hollow Men". It is an appropriate poem because hollow vessels create the most noise but they are also empty. From all those in opposition, including Fianna Fáil, we have not heard alternative ways of bringing in the necessary funding of €1.9 billion that will give rise to this new employment and allow these initiatives to progress.

We must acknowledge and take on board that our hospitality and services industry is, in line with the building industry, one of the key areas that has been very hard hit in recent times through unemployment. I have been contacted by a person who has two restaurants in Cork and who told me the proposals included in the Bill will allow him the very modest potential to employ two more people in each restaurant. With regard to hairdressing, if Members were from my part of the world, they would be aware of Mick Moriarty, who is known as the baldy barber. He has said for years that we must stimulate small businesses and remove from them the burden of higher VAT rates in order that they can pass the benefits on to the people in their communities and, consequently, that they will be in a position to employ. These measures work.

What we have heard today from the Opposition is a complete misunderstanding of how economics works. The reductions in VAT rates, and the future PRSI reduction that is planned, are marginal reductions. We are looking at an economy that we hope will grow by 0.8% this year and we hope to increase that growth over the coming years to 3%. This happens in any economy, even a small economy such as ours, through marginal improvements and through measures such as reducing or abolishing the travel tax. To suggest it is trivial that one family sitting in England will look at a reduction of €10 and decide to visit Ireland, as was suggested today, shows no understanding of how economics works. I will tell Members-----

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