Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me the opportunity to raise this issue and I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, for taking the debate.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, yesterday may have got lost among everything else that was happening in the House. They are incredibly stark. The total number of people unemployed, according to CSO measurements, is 308,500. The long-term unemployment rate has increased from 7.7% to 8.8% over the year to the second quarter of 2012. Long-term unemployment accounts for 59.9% of total unemployment in the second quarter. That figure, in itself, is incredibly stark and it has been rising consistently for the last number of years.

I know the Minister of State will outline a list of initiatives that people think are working and that we want to work. I have been that soldier. However, they are not working, as is illustrated by the CSO figures. The long-term unemployment figures are particularly worrying. These people are moving into a situation where they may become unemployable and suffer all the consequences of long-term unemployment.

Despite this, we have a skills shortage. We have companies that cannot fill vacancies. I pay tribute to the IDA and to the work it is doing and acknowledge the announcements made this week, but some IDA client companies are unable to fill vacancies. We have a skills challenge as well as an unemployment challenge. Surely, somewhere in Government system - I am not speaking about the political parties - someone needs to knock heads together and match up the skills shortage with the 308,500 people who are unemployed, 60% of whom are long-term unemployed.

We are putting so much effort into getting a deal on bank debt and fiscal debt. When the Government came to office the Tánaiste moved the trade function to the Department of Foreign Affairs to beef up that Department and make it more commercial. However, in Ireland and across Europe, governments are not putting a similar level of effort, fire power and imagination into resolving the unemployment problem. We see the measures Ben Bernanke has announced in the United States, where the unemployment rate is 8%. That is the kind of fire power we need on an EU-wide basis.

Many of those who are unemployed come from a construction background, and the country still needs major capital investment. Many of them could do with the old style conversion courses that were run back in the mid and late 1990s, although the course content may need to change. That would allow people to move their skills over the course of a year or 18 months into technology or to where there are labour market vacancies. We need a huge investment in that kind of course.

If the message goes out to the multinational community that Ireland is a great place to invest but the jobs, when they are announced, cannot be filled, we will lose further jobs to places such as Singapore, to the BRIC countries and elsewhere. Meanwhile, 308,500 people are looking for work.

The Minister of State will read the list of jobs initiatives and funding for businesses. I know the loan guarantee scheme is on the way and I congratulate the Minister of State and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on that measure. The opposition to it in the Department of Finance was intense but it was eventually brought over the line. It is incredibly important. Businesses and employers are crying out for capital investment from banks and they are not getting it. The banks, the Government and various Departments come up with figures but all of us in the Chamber know it is not happening on the ground. Very little new investment is happening. Without new investment we will not create jobs. I do not speak in any party political sense. As an Oireachtas, we have a duty to the country to put this issue front and centre.

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