Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Government is acutely aware of the scale of the challenge we face in combating unemployment and emigration, with more than 440,000 people on the live register. This crisis was created by years of bad economic policies and it will take considerable time to correct. The new Government is committed to getting people back to work. As the Deputy will be aware, on 10 May the Government launched a range of measures under the jobs initiative to improve the competitiveness of the economy, to support the maintenance of existing jobs and the creation of new ones, and to assist those who are currently unemployed to return to work. It includes the creation of an extra 20,900 activation places for the unemployed. These places will be delivered by the Department of Social Protection, and the Department of Education and Skills.

In addition, the Government is actively working on implementing the commitment to establish a new national employment and entitlements service which will focus our system on structured activation designed to help people develop their potential and avoid losing contact with the jobs market.

The jobs initiative also included several measures to boost the domestic economy, including: the reduction of VAT on restaurant and catering services, hotel and holiday accommodation and various entertainment services; the halving of the lower rate of employer's PRSI on earnings up to €356 per week; the focusing of the State's capital expenditure towards more employment-intensive projects in the areas of education, local and regional roads, sustainable transport projects, energy efficiency schemes and so on; and the development of proposals for a partial credit guarantee scheme to improve access to finance for SMEs, and for a microfinance start-up fund.

Much more needs to be done. Job creation can only be built by growing more successful enterprises. This requires strategies to improve cost competitiveness, improve access to credit, streamline competition and regulation, improve the uptake of innovation and develop the capability of enterprises. This will be the focus of continuing work by the Government and by my Department.

There is also great potential for job creation in several emerging sectors such as cloud computing, digital gaming and a number of others listed in the programme for Government. I am working to develop the potential of these and other sectoral opportunities.

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