Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Work on the Action Plan for Jobs 2013 has already been under way for several months. The Government recently held a special Cabinet meeting on jobs, as we did last year, to ensure that every opportunity has been taken across Government to support this central priority of Government. I am currently finalising the 2013 plan on behalf of the Government. The action plan will be published in the coming weeks and will once again include a range of actions to be delivered across Government that will improve the operating environment for business, improve Ireland’s competitiveness and support job creation. This plan is a key instrument in our objective to transform the economy from one that became over dependent on property, construction and debt to one focused on enterprise, innovation and exports.

A final quarterly report on the implementation of the 2012 plan will be published very shortly. I anticipate that, in keeping with the high level of implementation reported for the first three quarters of 2012, the final progress report will indicate an implementation rate of close to 95% for all actions which were due to have been delivered last year. Any actions which were not fully implemented in 2012 will, for the most part, be included in the 2013 programme for completion. Often, this was due to slower than anticipated delivery of new legislation. A very small number of actions which were not possible to implement due, for example, to budgetary constraints, will be replaced with other deliverables in 2013.

Key objectives have been realised under the action plan for jobs in 2012, including implementation of measures to improve competitiveness, access to finance, support to enterprise and the development of sectoral strategies to protect and create employment. In 2012 there was also significant net job creation by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland-supported companies, building on the positive results of 2011 and following successive years of significant net job losses.

See this speech in context