Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Earlier today 120 new jobs were announced in my home town of Drogheda. An American company, Yapstone, is setting up its new European headquarters in the town. It is an Internet payment company and will be hiring people for software development, finance and communications roles. These are the high-end technology jobs that we are trying to attract to Ireland. One of the reasons these jobs are being created Ireland is our highly skilled workforce. This is why education is one of the Government's key areas for investment. The Minister for Educations and Skills has outlined his five year school building plan which will ensure every child is accommodated when he or she reaches schoolgoing age. Seventeen schools will be built in County Meath to accommodate its growing population of young families. The capital investment we are making in the education sector will ensure not only that we continue to educate our children but also that we create local jobs in the towns and villages in which these new schools are to be built.

The Government is focused on attracting investment into Ireland. We are trying to create jobs that are sustainable. The State agencies are targeting dynamic and developing industries and emerging economies for export opportunities. A new tax regime has been introduced to support Irish companies looking for new export markets.

We have also changed how our embassies work and seek to attract investment into Ireland. The Tánaiste has changed the remit of our embassies so that selling Ireland as a place in which to invest is central to their role. Embassies are telling international businesses that, for example, our labour costs have reduced and are now 14% lower than they were and we are now one of the most efficient labour markets in the European Union. Our exports are growing and have reached levels we have not seen since the mid-noughties. We are members of a European market base of 500 million people and we have one of the youngest populations in Europe and an education system that produces world class graduates.

Ireland is an extremely good place in which to invest, as evident from the number of jobs being created here. However, I agree sufficient jobs are not being created and the unemployment rate is far too high. Deputy Adams accused some people of hypocrisy for saying one thing in their constituencies and something else here. I see it as hypocrisy on the part of Sinn Féin when 90 miles up the road the party is voting one way on cuts to services in the North of Ireland, but down here it pretends that is not happening. Deputy Adams cannot have it both ways. If he wants to accuse people of hypocrisy, he should be keenly aware of what his party is doing on the other side of the Border.

I accept the point we are not creating jobs as fast we would like and that is the reason we need reform. We are making reforms in areas such as social welfare and education and it is important we continue to do this. We need to ensure that people are being trained for the jobs available and provided by employers. This work is part of the remit of the new national entitlement and employment service that is replacing FÁS. This service will ensure that local employment needs are central to any new training scheme in their area.

We had the announcement today of an additional number of jobs in Drogheda, but we also had the announcement of the eighth review of our bailout programme by the troika. These outside agencies are judging whether we are keeping to the terms of the agreement entered into two years ago. We all want to put these reviews behind us and regain our economic sovereignty so that such reviews no longer need take place. The Government is working day in and day out to try to achieve this. We are on the right track. We want to see further job creation. Jobs are not being created as quickly as we would like, but we are making and will continue to make progress.

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