Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, for his earlier remarks.

The Minister referred to the IDA's record year in 2011. The authority has also had a very successful nine months in 2012. One of its big announcements was of 1,000 jobs, but 500 of those jobs had to be filled from outside the State. Meanwhile, 306,000 people are unemployed, of whom 60% are long-term unemployed. We cannot have a skills shortage on the one hand and a serious unemployment problem on the other.

Can the Minister not look at the Fianna Fáil proposal to put a scheme in place similar to the one the Minister established when he was in his Department in a previous Administration? It was a technology transfer scheme where people who are in need of a job can go through the scheme and fill high-tech jobs, such as the 500 jobs to which I referred.

The Minister said some of Deputy Tóibín's proposals went beyond his ministerial brief. Deputy Bruton is the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. He should be a thorn in the side of every Minister in the Cabinet, demanding to know how many jobs they are creating in their Departments and how many jobs their proposals for the forthcoming budget will create. That is what the Minister with responsibility for jobs should be doing.

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