Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

The ultimate job of this Government is to put in place measures that will allow this State to regain its full sovereignty and rebuild its solvency. Any such measures must be evaluated in light of these two overriding objectives. Within that framework there are many measures and plans proposed in this Bill which are welcome. The philosophy underpinning the Bill is that the green economy and the smart economy will form a large part of our future economic renewal, but this Government must also look after the cash economy of today in order to allow us get to that point. It recognises that the many different sectors of employment and growth which constitute the cash economy will play a significant and valuable role in our future by providing jobs for those who lack them and by preserving the jobs we have.

Within that theme there are five areas I wish to touch upon in my contribution. They are mentioned in this Bill and the debate surrounding it and I believe it is worthwhile to note them in the House. First, I refer to the employment survey figures published today by Forfás, covering all companies that provided State aid or supervision in the past year. Many of these companies tend to be so successful in providing a balance of payments surplus that an enormous difference shows up between Ireland and other European countries involved in managing a debt crisis. These figures reveal a point very pertinent to this discussion in the House. They show that within that sector of our economy, slightly more than 2,750 people are employed. However, the actual numbers employed in the sector have declined by 6,521 since last year, in spite of its superb economic output in that period. This points to the real challenge we face in securing the jobs we have. In those sectors of the economy that are so very successful in producing wealth and driving export performance the numbers of people employed are actually declining because of the sector's productivity and the nature of the industry. Between one and seven and one in eight jobs within our economy are found in this large sector which is massively important to our economy. However, in spite of this recent great success the numbers employed in the industry are in decline.

That points to the strategic necessity of a Bill such as this which looks at other jobs and other sectors that are important to our economy and asks what can we do to give them a prompt and add some confidence. What this Bill proposes, therefore, is the abolition of one tax, the reduction by half of another and the reduction of a third tax to be funded by measures taken elsewhere. The measures are all designed to provide support and confidence to other parts of our economy that will be vital in our continued renewal.

Second, I refer to measures that were announced in the jobs initiative which are not, by their nature, included in the Finance Bill, namely, proposed measures to improve visa access to this country. This is a most important area for us to focus in coming months. Last week, I organised a forum in Leinster House that focused on the digital part of economy, in particular companies involved in digital gaming. Many colleagues were good enough to come along for an hour to hear about the good work in question. Yesterday, I visited one of the companies concerned, Havok, which was acquired recently by Intel because of its enormous success in designing software that allows three-dimensional graphics to be portrayed on screen. Company personnel spoke to me about the considerable challenge they face when they identify foreign talent, people who design games, physicists and engineers, the very epitome of the smart economy, and induce them to move to our State. Getting them into this country and locating them here is proving a real challenge.

The personnel pointed to a scheme which currently operates in Denmark. Danish candidates who work in the smart economy but who have not worked or paid tax in Denmark in recent years can return to that country and be given a personal tax holiday for five years. That tax holiday to encourage them to return is tied into the ability of such people to create local jobs. Why can we not look at a scheme of that kind? If we can attract people into our State, regardless of nationality, and tie their employment here into indigenous job creation, we should be able to make instant their ability to acquire a visa. One of the factors that played a significant role in the creation of the Silicon Valley success story, of which we hear so much, is that, in the early 1980s nobody cared who was responsible for creating the success. If a person had a good idea, it did not matter where they came from. The authorities made it very easy for them to get into the state of California, set up a business and be active.

I believe that we will move quickly to a situation whereby, notwithstanding our banking difficulties and the pressure created in the supply of credit, there will be people coming into this State who will want to supply capital to people who are successful and have good ideas. We should encourage people, regardless of their nationality, who want to set up business in Ireland to create jobs here. I heard at first hand personnel from the company, Havok, talk about the great difficulties they experience in doing just that. There is a low-cost opportunity here for our State. Measures could be sorted out quickly in order to make it easy to funnel direct job creation into the smart economy.

My third point was touched upon by Deputy Stephen Donnelly in his contribution on the jobs initiative a number of weeks ago. I agree with him on one important point. We must ensure that whatever measures we put in place to reduce the tax burden on employers will contribute either to an improvement in competitiveness within the sectors concerned or to an improvement in direct job creation.

It would be a pity if in 12 months when we sit back to evaluate the success of this initiative - I will make a point on that - what we see amounts only to marginal improvements in these sectors but there is no sign that it is yielding direct job improvements or improvements in the competitiveness of those sectors. Too often in our country we come up with an initiative and put it out but we never take the time to step back 12 or 18 months afterwards to determine how it has actually worked. We must be brave, stand up and indicate what has and has not worked and what we should do the next time. The evaluation of initiatives, especially this one, must be carried out a good deal more. By the time we get to the next budget we should be able to stand up and state what has and has not worked with regard to all the measures proposed in the Finance (No. 2) Bill. In the case of those elements which have not worked within the scarce resources available, we should acknowledge as much and redeploy them elsewhere.

I conclude with reference to the European situation on which many colleagues have commented in this debate and earlier today in the House. It is of inordinate importance that whatever decisions are to be made in the next 12 to 18 months in terms of our engagement with private credit markets and so on, such decisions should not be made at the last moment. We can see a significant element of what is unfolding in Greece. It has a large amount of debt that must be renewed shortly; I believe it is next month. Whatever the difficulty facing Greece, which is vast, it is being compounded by the fact that it is running out of time to make any decisions and all the agencies involved are quickly finding themselves in a corner. Whatever decision we make and whether the scenarios are run out in private or in public, we should be doing the work for it now.

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