Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

I welcome the Government's jobs action plan as a timely and necessary intervention. I wonder how the members of the previous Government can maintain a straight face when speaking about job creation given their failure to grasp the enormity of the unemployment problem at a time when the crisis was growing. They vowed on several occasions to tackle the scourge of unemployment but only on the basis of one press conference at a time. I am familiar with unemployment and I am aware that many of my colleagues in this House have a similar understanding. I know how human dignity and self-worth can be compromised and undermined. This is why the Government is sincere when it says it is obsessed about jobs.

When I asked the people of County Louth and east County Meath for their votes, the message was repeatedly delivered that we need to restore the conditions necessary to create jobs. We began that task as soon as we entered power with the jobs initiative, which introduced the national internship scheme and successfully targeted VAT cuts at the tourism and hospitality sectors. Thousands of jobs were created last year as a direct result of that targeted intervention.

The grand pledges we heard from the previous Government, which were backed by little more than vague promises, insulted the intelligence of the Irish people and damaged the faith of the unemployed. This plan is distinguished by the honesty of its ambitions. It is clear that we are prepared to be held to account for its success or failure. Creating jobs involves a series of complex and interconnected tasks. There is no silver bullet. We are targeting sectors of the economy that can grow and we will work together to identify what we can do better than any other country in the world.

In the arts sector, which is of particular interest to me, we will double the number of people working in the film and audiovisual sector over the lifetime of the action plan for jobs. Without the leadership of the then Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, President Higgins, 20 years ago nobody would have believed that we could create a productive film industry that would create thousands of jobs and cement Ireland's place on the international film production stage. Approximately 5,000 people work in the film and audiovisual sector at present and we aim to double that figure to 10,000 over the next few years with State support. The creative industries will flourish under this plan. Few other sectors have shown as much innovation and imagination. Our unique arts and culture offering exemplifies what is best about Ireland and what it means to be Irish. I am confident the sector can deliver the job increases outlined in the plan.

The assimilation of county enterprise boards into the local authority structure will be beneficial for both the enterprise boards and the local authorities. The performance of local authorities in developing enterprises has been patchy, to say the least. The enterprise structure and philosophy can imbue local authorities with a more pro-enterprise approach. Local authorities have a key function in job creation, as we have seen in the impact of Louth County Council's economic development unit under the leadership of the county manager, Con Murray, and former head of the IDA, Padraic White.

I am very enthusiastic about the potential for the export unit in Enterprise Ireland and baffled as to why that issue has not been addressed previously. Anecdotal evidence suggests that dozens of small and medium enterprises in my area alone could benefit from advice from Enterprise Ireland on creating jobs through exports.

Procurement has long been an issue for small and medium enterprises in this country, which believe they are not adequately supported in benefiting from State contracts. It is important that we deal with this issue. The replies to a series of parliamentary questions I recently put to Departments and State agencies indicate that our performance is improving in terms of awarding contracts to businesses based in the Republic of Ireland. It is important in these times of limited Exchequer funding and constrained capital projects that we target local industries because otherwise we would be throwing good money after bad. We need to achieve value for every euro we spend on jobs.

The most significant measure in this action plan is that Ministers and State agencies will be made accountable. It takes an action orientated approach. I agree with previous speakers that accountability needs to inform everything we do to create jobs. That has been a failing in previous approaches, which merely amounted to cosmetic exercises.

Deputy Harris pointed out that our international embassy network needs to focus on trade. The Government took a deliberate decision to include trade with foreign affairs. It is important that every Irish Embassy is heavily imbued with the attitude that it also has a job creation agenda. We have seen the benefit of that in recent times.

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