Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I am glad the Taoiseach has clarified that the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, denies that he made the remarks attributed to him at the weekend. In the context of transparency, I also take it as an adamant denial of any suggestion that the Minister told the executives present that this was not to be spoken about afterwards, and that he did not want his remarks to be re-articulated or published subsequently.

I put it to the Taoiseach, however, that the jobs strategy is not working. At the time the growth target was set by the Government, everybody said it would not happen. The Government has belatedly acknowledged that its growth target will not work. As far back as the budget, the Government's own documentation was predicting an increase in unemployment this year. Therefore there is no evidence whatsoever that the jobs strategy is up to the game, given the scale of the problem.

There is no specific targeting of youth unemployment. We published a youth employment strategy last week with a view to getting a political consensus around the idea of focusing proactively on young people and the predicament they face in this crisis, which is the worst globally since the 1930s. We need to take extra measures and engage in out of the box thinking in order to help young people leaving schools and colleges to gain work or, at least, be put on the pathway to employment by gaining valuable experience through internships and thus securing jobs.

I do not accept the Taoiseach's political point about previous plans not being followed through. It is clear that the work we did with Enterprise Ireland and the IDA in recent years has borne fruit. For quite some time, the country's essential industrial strategy has worked for foreign direct investment. In addition, the reform and re-priorisitising of Enterprise Ireland's strategic objectives have worked to help Irish-owned companies grow and export. The development of a venture capital fund strategy happened quite a number of years ago through Enterprise Ireland, in the absence of the private sector. All of that has been effective but the current crisis has impacted most on the domestic economy, on the retail sector, in particular, and the hospitality sector, in terms of construction. I do not see a jobs strategy across all sectors in any response or sense of a series of measures being devised to assist those sectors earn some breathing space to come through this crisis. The Government stands indicted in terms of a lack of creative thinking-----

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