Alan Farrell (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his work on the Bill and I am grateful for this opportunity to debate it. Despite what the previous speaker stated, I believe the Bill is positive and reflects some of the positive focus the Government places on job creation in particular. At the forefront of the Government's agenda is the task of job creation and getting the 450,000 people on the live register back to work. It is the only means by which we can lead this country to recovery and is at the core of virtually every decision made in the Chamber. Creating an environment for sustainable job growth while also bringing our deficit closer to the mark year on year is by no means an easy task but it is what we said we would do and what we were elected to do.

The Bill introduces innovative measures to support Irish businesses while retaining foreign direct investment as a cornerstone of our economic progress and targeting investment in areas with the capacity to create good sustainable jobs. In this regard, the Bill has been welcomed by financial and business industries nationwide, which is a major achievement in itself. The area I represent, which will be in the new constituency of Dublin Fingal, has always had a particular interest in the development of the aviation sector given the presence of Dublin Airport. I very much welcome the provisions in the Bill to introduce industrial building allowances for the sector and the provision of an accelerated capital allowance scheme. Both of these measures will encourage expansion and growth of the industry. While I have singled out my constituency, it is of course true the success of the sector is of national importance, and I will attempt to put this into perspective. Ireland is the premier global location for aircraft leasing and the aviation sector now manages more than half of the world's aviation fleet, according to the Federation of Aerospace Enterprises in Ireland, with assets worth more than €83 billion. In the past two years passenger numbers have begun to recover at a rate of 2% per annum. This is expected to increase in 2013 with new routes announced several months ago, at the end of 2012. These figures were provided by Dublin Airport yesterday.

According to the 2011 Oxford Economics report, the aviation sector contributes €4.6 billion to our GDP and an extra €5.3 billion in related benefits through tourism. It supports 54,000 Irish jobs, 16,000 of which are direct with the remainder indirect. To put this into a local perspective, Dublin Airport makes up the largest concentration of employees in my constituency. The most recent figures available suggest approximately 10,000 jobs are directly located on the campus of Dublin Airport. Indirectly, more than four times this amount of jobs are created in the overall region as a result of employment at the airport. These statistics do not even reflect the impact of the sector's contribution to export business expansion, world market accessibility and overall business transport costs. These sectors must be carefully guarded and I very much commend the Minister for the contribution to the industry in this respect. The measure will attract more aviation sector business and jobs throughout Ireland, and will encourage businesses to expand. It will also create an opportunity for increased growth in aircraft maintenance and repair. It is probably worth pointing out the outstanding work of the local authorities, Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council, to facilitate this growth.

With regard to tourism and transport, the auto diesel excise reliefs for hauliers and private coach companies are significant and have been widely welcomed nationwide. There is genuine relief in particular in the haulage industry, which has been struggling in terms of competitiveness due to the price of fuel. I hope this measure will contribute largely to protecting jobs in the sector and in time grow the industry to create further expansion and employment. I also welcome moves to include coach operators in this relief to provide some shield from the ever-increasing price of diesel. Our coach operators are at the forefront of our tourism industry and reducing costs for them will mean value for money for tourists, whom we will particularly welcome to the country in 2013 given it is the year of The Gathering.

I also recognise the very welcome provision in section 29 for a pilot urban regeneration scheme. This is effectively an inner-city regeneration programme in itself. If the scheme is successful it will lead the way for the restoration of many historic buildings in our cities, some of which are of intrinsic architectural value. It will not only allow the public to take pride once again in the appearance of our streets and our city heritage but it also has enormous potential to get people back into the city centres to live and work. To directly contradict the comments of the previous speaker, this is not about lining the pockets of investors; it is about directly facilitating homeowners to regenerate their properties and live and work in the inner city. The opportunity to restore and bring a new lease of life back to the street in areas which have been forgotten and allowed to deteriorate is a very exciting prospect and I hope it will get the investment and interest it deserves. The initiative is very much at the first stage and there is a long way to go, but it is a worthwhile project to begin.

We are one of the strongest performers when it comes to foreign direct investment, and recognising that any savings in the Bill do not impact on this in any way is key to the success of our future. The Government has steered us successfully from a period of uncertainty on the international stage to a position we are working towards of being one of the best small countries in which to do business. The Taoiseach has repeated this on a number of occasions, including today when visiting Microsoft. As a small country we were ranked first for investment initiatives to attract foreign direct investment in 2012 and this did not happen by accident. It was as a result of the determination by the Government to ensure our attractive position is guarded through retaining our current level of income tax and corporation tax, and continuously reforming the ease with which to do business.

US multinationals alone employ more than 100,000 people in the country. While some would be very quick to question the incentives offered to these companies in Ireland, it would be very difficult to question the value of 100,000 workers in sustainable jobs paying taxes, spending money and contributing to our economy. A total of 16,000 new jobs were created through foreign direct investment last year alone, and I commend the Minister for putting Ireland on top of this competitive stage by protecting these jobs and securing in the Bill the means by which we can continue to welcome more jobs and grow our economy.

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