Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The head of the IMF, Ms Christine Lagarde, said the global economy is facing a lost decade as forecasts on global growth are now very low. The predictions of the Government's fiscal plan include economic growth of 1.6% next year. The connection with unemployment is quite significant because, in April, the Taoiseach targeted a 10% unemployment rate by 2015. Despite the launch of the jobs initiative, the figures published last Friday suggest we are heading for a higher unemployment figure of 11.6% by 2015, given that the Taoiseach's programme only allows for 65,000 net new jobs between now and then. That is in sharp contrast to the commitments given by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, at the launch of the NewERA document. A clear commitment was given to sell €7 billion of State assets with a view to investing in State companies and creating 100,000 jobs. Why has the job target of 100,000 jobs through NewERA been watered down? We know that the jobs initiative, the watered down jobs budget, was anything but a jobs initiative. There has been no evaluation, no data and no analysis of any outcome of the jobs initiative. In short, it seems that the jobs initiative amounted to a raid on pensioners and was more about revenue generation than employment creation. More than 447,000 people are unemployed. Many young people are looking to the Government for concrete, realistic proposals to create jobs. It is the most fundamental issue facing many households across the country. Can the Taoiseach assure me that there will be concrete attempts and proposals of a radical kind in the forthcoming budget to generate a far greater degree of employment than is currently predicted by the Government?

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