Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The situation in which the country finds itself, with unemployment at the level it stands on the live register, is completely unacceptable. As the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, has commented on many occasions, the figure of 300,000 people who are unemployed within the context of the live register is unacceptable to me and to the Government. That is why the entire focus of this Government is to rectify our public finances, restore our economic sovereignty, grow jobs, put out a very clear understanding that this Government is open for business, is pro-business and pro-initiative, and within the course of this Dáil session will bring in a number of further measures that will add confidence, demonstrate flexibility for small and medium enterprises, provide micro-finance for those who employ very small numbers or who want to employ such numbers, and adjust, where we can, the red tape, bureaucracy and obstructions to job creation.

I made the point the other day to the Deputy's party leader that I was approached by an employer in the past fortnight who told me that the rates of pay in her place of employment were between €9.50 and €11 per hour, but after advertising and interviewing on three occasions, not one Irish person could be taken on to work in the establishment, which has a very high standard rating. The consequence, she told me, is that she will now have to bring in people from outside the country who will work for and contribute on those rates and send money back to their own countries.

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