Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the midst of the greatest jobs crisis in generations, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have managed to devise a proposal that will cost jobs and erode the conditions of workers. Over the past four years, more jobs were lost in this State on a per capita basis than in any other western country since the Great Depression. All we see from the Government, however, are policies that will further depress the economy and make it more difficult for small businesses. The Taoiseach promised 100,000 new jobs, although his tally currently stands at minus 33,000, and promised that the all-consuming obsession of every Minister would be the creation of jobs, but the Minister for Social Protection must have missed that day's memorandum. While the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation trumpets the strategy of reducing PRSI contributions for small businesses, the Minister for Social Protection plans to do the opposite by shifting €89 million from her budget onto the small and medium-sized enterprises sector. We are told this must be done because of the pressures that bear down on the PRSI system. The primary pressure on the PRSI system at present is the burgeoning unemployment figure. Putting the cost of sick pay onto businesses will add further pressure to the system. In an environment where more than 200 businesses collapse every week, the Minister is looking to that sector to achieve her adjustment of €89 million.

The PRSI fund should have grown during the Celtic tiger but the necessary reserves were not created during the good times. Fianna Fáil, the party which proposed this motion, is directly responsible for the failure to build reserves. The Members of that party have again fallen short by failing to offer a solution to the problems in the PRSI fund. Sinn Féin has proposed an amendment which will contribute to the fund without harming job creation or business viability.

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