Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The policies being pursued by the Government have failed utterly to date. The previous Government brought us into the ice age economically and sold out on our economic sovereignty in the process. The Government is squandering any hope of change people had prior to the general election last year. The programme for Government promised a lot and proclaimed a democratic revolution had taken place, but we have since had a rise in the levels of unemployment and child poverty, while businesses are struggling to survive. We certainly have not seen a revolution. The programme for Government agreed to by Fine Gael and the Labour Party promised much on jobs, a commitment to developing a universal single tier health system and the elimination of poverty. However, keeping these promises is another day's work. One of the promises that was kept was to slavishly support the objectives of the so-called EU-IMF programme of support. We are as much and more slaves to the troika now than we were in February 2011 under the previous Government.

Unfortunately, we have many indicators of how life has deteriorated for ordinary people in the past 19 months. Since the Government came to power, unemployment has continued to rise and is at a staggering 435,200, according to the September figures. This does not include up to 100,000 people who have emigrated since 2008 or those who are not entitled to sign on. We all know such persons who are unemployed and would like to work, but who cannot sign on.

The health care system limps along from crisis to crisis. Recently we had the scandal of stroke politics in the system in the context of primary health care centres. It had all the hallmarks of the practices of the previous Government. The Labour Party tells us repeatedly why it is in government, but this instance shows us that it is either incapable or unwilling to stand up against the use of such tactics. Unfortunately, the Tánaiste sacrificed one of his Ministers of State, rather than challenge the Fine Gael Minister for Health on the matter.

Some 706,371 people now live in poverty. A staggering 19.5% of children live in poverty, which is worse. The number of children living in poverty - approximately 200,000 - has increased by approximately 35,000 in the past three years. Last year's Labour Party manifesto declared that in government, the party would adopt a new and radical area-based approach to tackling child poverty. We have not seen that. It would be an understatement to say the Labour Party has not had an effect in this area. Its presence in government has been a failure. The myth that Fine Gael is good for business simply does not stand up. New lending to small and medium sized enterprises amounted to just €407 million in the first quarter of 2012. That represents a reduction of 29.6% on the fourth quarter of 2011 and a reduction of €700 million on the fourth quarter of 2010.

Time and time again, we have heard ridiculous comments from the Government benches and more recently from Fianna Fáil to the effect that Sinn Féin is devoid of solutions. We do not pretend to have all the answers. I will use the rest of the time available to me to offer a few solutions. I hope we can debate them and learn from each other. Last week, Sinn Féin launched its jobs plan, Create Jobs - Create Growth. Although it is ambitious, it is based on reality. Every euro has been costed on the basis of information from Departments. Sinn Féin is proposing almost €13 billion in additional investment over a period of four years.

Our plan for economic growth has the potential to create 156,000 jobs and to retain 15,000 existing jobs. It would be funded by €5.8 billion in discretionary moneys from the National Pensions Reserve Fund. It is worth noting that there was €23.2 billion in the fund in February 2011. Some €1.53 billion would be borrowed from the European Investment Bank. That is the only outside borrowing part of this package. Some €3 billion would come from incentivised investments from the private pensions sector. I will speak later about how that would be repaid. Sinn Féin would not cut €2.6 billion from the capital budget as the Government is proposing to do. We will expand on that when we publish our budgetary proposals as we have in previous years. We have costed this. Under our jobs plan, we will invest in essential infrastructure.

I listened carefully to what Deputy Creed said. I identified with what he said about house-building. I agree that there will have to be a different approach to the construction industry. We have to invest in essential infrastructure that will create jobs, improve competitiveness and help kick-start the economy. We should focus on areas like renewable energy, eco-tourism, agriculture and rural development. The renewable energy sector and the green economy were neglected during the boom years, unfortunately. We are committed to investing €800 million in wind energy. We will introduce reforms to reduce the lead-in time needed for projects. We will mandate the ESB to develop offshore wind generation over a five-year period. It is estimated that the alternative energy industry has the potential to create 50,000 jobs over a 15-year period. We strongly believe renewable energy must have a State foothold. We must ensure that wind energy projects are built in full consultation with local communities.

Sinn Féin would invest €500 million in this country's crumbling water infrastructure, with a particular focus on losses from reservoirs and the distribution network. The NewERA document that was produced by the Government committed to an investment of €4.2 billion as part of an upgrade of Ireland's water infrastructure. It pointed out that Ireland spends €700 million each year on the production of clean drinking water. Approximately 40% of that water is wasted through leaks from the water system, unfortunately. The investment we propose would assist local councils in their ongoing attempts to protect and upgrade the water supply and to conserve water.

We are committed to investing €5 billion in retrofitting this country's housing stock. Some 1.4 million houses and 130,000 non-residential buildings in Ireland need insulation retrofits. We have a very poor record in this regard. According to the Institute of International and European Affairs, an investment of approximately €14 billion would be required to bring this country's residential housing stock to an average building energy rating of C1. That is required if we are to have any kind of reasonable standard. According to the institute's figures, an investment of €10,000 in each house is required. Given that the average household would save €1,496 per annum, it is clear that the necessary expenditure could be incentivised. It is obvious that the savings would be repaid into the pension funds. Critically, this work would help Ireland to reach its 20% efficiency target by 2020. One of the benefits of this approach is that it would allow us to reduce the amount of fuel we import every year.

I have outlined some solutions in the few minutes available to me. I agree that the old policies have failed and the old approaches have not worked. We need to have new thinking. The response to this huge problem needs to be proportionate. Sinn Féin is concerned that the current response is not in proportion to the scale of the problem. We must get people off the dole and back to work. Every person who is not working is costing us €20,000. An unemployed person could be paying €10,000 in revenue to the State if he or she were working. We must turn around the wheel. We are committed to proposing ideas to that end. We must work to do that.

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