Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 19 together.

The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and I were able to report last Friday, in the first quarterly progress report on the implementation of the action plan for jobs, that 96%, or 80 out of 83 measures which were scheduled to be completed in quarter 1, were delivered. I regard this as a significant achievement for the Government and an indication of its success in dealing with the issues.

Some important deliverables already achieved under the Action Plan include the development of the partial credit guarantee scheme and the publication of legislation to bring it into effect, the launch of the Succeed in Ireland initiative, the design and launch of Enterprise Ireland's development capital scheme, the enactment of pro-jobs measures in the Finance Bill and the establishment of a new education and training fund.

Only three of the 83 measures were not fully completed, and these relate to the launch of a new women-in-business start-up drive, the development of an approach and a programme to support industry-led clustering, and the development of a cloud-computing strategy for the public service. While these three measures were not fully completed on schedule, significant progress has been made on them, and I fully expect them to be finalised during the second quarter.

The Government is committed to ongoing monitoring of the action plan. A monitoring committee, comprising representatives from the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, my Department and Forfás, has been established to track the progress of each of the quarterly targets to be met.

Targets are designed to be realistic but ambitious. They are being pursued vigorously and rigorously monitored. Those who are assigned responsibility are expected to overcome obstacles and will have to account to the Taoiseach with quarterly reporting dates to maintain momentum. This is the central priority of Government and each Minister has bought into the central national importance of this process.

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