Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We cannot borrow money if we cannot pay it back. Sometimes Deputy Stephen Donnelly talks about macroeconomics. Sometimes he talks about microeconomics. He talks about a country operating the same as a household. Sometimes the same principles apply. One must cut your cloth to fit the measure. The situation we have inherited, according to the 2012 Estimates, is that we as a Parliament on behalf of the people will spend over €55 billion to run the country. We are raising only €38 billion. We are overspending by almost €3,900 for every single person in the country.

We have an unemployment rate of over 14% but also an employment rate of 86%. For example, in my constituency of Cork South-West the figures show there was an increase in population of over 6,000 persons between the recent census and the previous one. The amount of people who are at work remains the same and one could easily extrapolate that maybe 6,000 emigrated. The critical point, if one examines the figures, is that 2,500 lost their jobs in the construction and retail sectors while there was an increase of 2,200 jobs in administration and public services. That happened only in one small sparsely populated constituency in this country and if one extrapolates it to every constituency in the country, one sees the problem of a basic unsustainable characteristic in the economy that must be addressed. We cannot afford to allow this trend to continue where the public sector is growing at an unsustainable rate while the number employed in the private sector is contracting at an alarming rate. This shows at the local level how the public finances at a national level are in such a negative state, and that is what needs to be fixed first.

We need to recreate an economy that will encourage enterprise that will create sustainable jobs throughout the country. The Taoiseach and the Ministers have this as their first priority and I note this would be the wish of every Member in this House. There have been recent announcements by Irish companies such as the Kerry Group and in my constituency, multinationals such as Eli Lily in Dunderrow near Kinsale, achieving tremendous results in different sectors and providing different opportunities for the people.

We need to encourage those who want to work rather than dependence on social welfare payments. We need to increase the mobility of those taking up short-term or temporary employment who are being deterred if it take up to six weeks to regain their social welfare payment following the cessation of their work. Unfortunately, in many constituencies where there is seasonal work that is a real factor. We need to examine the possibility of fast tracking the bureaucracy associated with these applications for social protection when they did take up an employment opportunity even if it was of a temporary or seasonal nature. Everything helps. We need to examine the poverty layer that is perceived in moving from a social protection scheme back to employment.

I ask the Minister for Social Protection to examine the operation of the back-to-education allowance. For example, I was recently contacted by a constituent who had a third level qualification in the construction sector and who had been employed for eight years as an architectural technician. She has been unemployed since 2008 and has been informed that the software has moved on so far that she would no longer be qualified in that sector. She sought a place on a back-to-education scheme to train as a technician with the guarantee of a job once the course had been completed.

However, because she would be taking a course at the same FETAC level, she was not allowed. She is still on jobseeker's allowance. I ask the Minister to examine the possibility of allowing retraining when a person's original qualification is out of date or the prospect of employment in his or her original profession is non-existent. We must be more flexible with these incentive schemes.

We also need to look at child benefit and its relationship, for example, with other social protection schemes such as family income supplement. The latter is not taken up enough and would possibly encourage more people to consider working. Our Ministers must make hard choices every day of the week. We have inherited the Croke Park agreement, which is a delicate balance between looking after the interests of those working for our State and reducing our deficit. I would like to encourage those in the public service to make a contribution to rebuilding our economy. I note a report carried by The Irish Timesthis month on EUROSTAT data which indicates that Irish employees spend an average of 38.5 hours in the workplace per week, which is two hours less than the European average. I also note that those in the education sector have the shortest working week, at only 31.5 hours, which is six hours below the EU average. If we are to be competitive again, perhaps we will have to consider working a little bit harder or a little bit longer - maybe an hour extra per week. I note the success of the Minister for Justice and Equality and the staff in his Department in reducing the processing time for citizenship applications from two and a half years to nine months. It would be great to see similar improvements throughout the public sector, which would prove that the Croke Park agreement is in the interest of all of our citizens. Reform can happen.

There are some parts of the economy in which confidence and trust are real and tangible characteristics. They are as tangible and real as regulation and investment. However, the noise that we constantly hear, sometimes in this House, on the streets and in the media, with some notable examples in The Wall Street Journal recently, do no service to this country. If we are to get the retail sector back on its feet or the construction sector back to a sustainable level, we must increase our confidence and belief in the ability of our people to get the economy back in hand. We must believe that we can get the country up and running and back to work.

See this speech in context