Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

Today's figures from the CSO are frightening. They show there are 18,000 fewer people in the workforce in the first quarter of this year compared with the last quarter of 2012. They also show an increase in unemployment to 14.8%. That is despite the fact approximately 70,000 people are emigrating these shores annually.

Today marks the 450th day in government for the Minister, and that is his record. It is a damning one in terms of the lack of work that has been done on job creation. Public procurement is directly related to job creation. Yet again, this country has one of the worst records in Europe on public procurement. The report to which reference was made in the question has been published since 2009 and by all appearances it has been gathering dust on shelves since then. A total of 22.8% of contracts awarded by the State were to companies outside the State. The European average is 3.4%.

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