Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I acknowledge Deputy Deasy's point that the agencies have increased their activity in the region and I note his acknowledgement of the sectoral opportunities for development such as in the life sciences. I will pursue his query as to the reason for the lack of quarterly meetings by the forum. My impression is that there is quite an amount of bottom-up commitment in the region. I will raise those questions and see what can be done.

The enterprise agencies are treating Waterford as a special case and this needs to be reflected elsewhere across Government in order to meet the infrastructural and structural problems. I have no doubt that the Pathways to Work initiative under the remit of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, will focus on the south east because of its high levels of unemployment.

Deputy Deasy makes the point that six months on, we have not reversed the trends but it will take longer than six months to address these problems. However, in my view, with consistent attention to the challenges, we will make progress here. Nationally, improvements across many areas will be required under the action plan for jobs, such as access to finance and the encouragement of start-up companies and competitiveness, the resolution of broadband access deficiencies and other infrastructural factors. We need to continue with the agenda of work in order to undertake an economic transformation nationally. It will be a difficult period but the action plan for jobs process which is an annual programme of actions that will make a difference, is vital in tackling not just the south east's problems but also the wider problems. The Government has a policy vehicle which will bring together all Departments in a more meaningful way in order to address the employment challenge. I believe this will help in the south-east region which has been affected by many challenges other than enterprise challenges.

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