Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Taoiseach well on assuming the Presidency of the Council of the European Union recently. He has got off to a flying start. It behoves all Members of the House to indicate our strong support for the Taoiseach in the critical six months ahead. I wish to commit the support of our party to the Taoiseach in the initiatives he will take.

The strategy statement from the Taoiseach's Department is a very impressive document. When he launched it the Taoiseach spoke about the transformative effect it would have on the way government is conducted. To date, we have seen little of a transformative nature happening, or at least little of a transformative nature that is positive. I have in mind what happened in the period preceding the last budget. We discussed this on the last occasion I was in the House for Taoiseach's questions. Rather than a very active participation by all Ministers in the process of Cabinet and doing what the core principle of the strategy says should be done, when it refers to the importance of open discussion and listening to discordant voices, the Economic Management Council appears to have made the major decisions, and the leaks and informed statements from Ministers in the aftermath of the budget suggest that the worst and most unfair cuts were only revealed by the Economic Management Council to the Cabinet when it was too late to change them.

Last week, the Government made a major announcement about a special Cabinet meeting on jobs. Given the cross-cutting role the Taoiseach is now taking across all Government Departrments, one could not but be a little surprised that he was having a special Cabinet meeting on jobs at this point when one would have expected, given the strategy statement, that the key issue of jobs would have been a critical issue in all Cabinet meetings. Perhaps the Taoiseach would explain that situation further.

The Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures show there has been little progress in the area of labour activation measures. The Taoiseach needs to do more in this area and in the area of re-skilling. A Private Members' motion last week set out the real difficulties that are arising in post-leaving certificate courses, PLCs, and further education, where the cutback by the Minister for Education and Skills is making it more difficult for people to access re-skilling opportunities. Where re-skilling opportunities are in place the reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio is creating a situation where those innovative courses and skilled course deliverers are at risk of losing their places to deliver these re-skilling opportunities.

Finally, I was struck by a supreme irony last week when one of my colleagues, Deputy Dara Calleary, tabled a question to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, about the issue of employment and jobs. The Minister's response was that the matter of jobs was the responsibility of his colleague the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton. The theory of a whole-of-Cabinet approach is absolutely superb, but if our experience of the reality is something quite different, the Taoiseach's strategy, while a great document, is not being implemented in an effective way. What is the Taoiseach's response to that?

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