Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had hoped to have an opportunity to discuss the unemployment crisis in County Donegal with the Minister at an earlier stage last year, but his colleague, the Minister of State, took the debate on that occasion. I will take this opportunity to take the Minister through the history of the unemployment crisis in County Donegal as the crisis is not. As he will recall, the Fruit of the Loom textile industry collapsed in County Donegal and the signs of its decline were evident in the late 1990s. It finally collapsed in the early 2000s. An employment task force was established by the then Government to address the crisis caused not only by the collapse of Fruit of the Loom but also the collapse off the entire textile industry in the region. Definite job creation targets were put in place in the next seven years that would have amounted to a net gain of approximately 6,000 jobs. That was the scale of what was required to allow County Donegal to start to catch up with the then employment levels across the State. After a period of almost seven years, however, there was no real progress. Unemployment levels in the county were still at or around 14% to 15% which at the time were almost four times the national average. An interdepartmental group was set up to work across all Departments as there was a unique job creation challenge in County Donegal. As we approached the late 2000s, some 8,300 people were unemployed in the county, a large number of people equating to an unemployment level of 14%.

The level of unemployment in County Donegal today is 28%, which means approximately 23,000 people are out of full-time employment. This presents a profound crisis in the county. Donegal is a county with natural entrepreneurs, people who want to work if they were given the chance to do so. In that respect, there are one or two examples. Primerica stands out as a solid example of what the workforce in County Donegal has to offer, if given the chance.

I will give the Minister some shocking statistics. I remind him that while unemployment levels are bad throughout the country, the unemployment levels in County Donegal are the highest in the State by a mile, while the youth unemployment rate is almost at 50%. I will cite statistics for last year for the job creation agencies. In the case of Enterprise Ireland, there were 129 net job losses in County Donegal. The number of site visits by IDA Ireland in the county in 2012 was zero, despite the crisis we face in the county.

As the Minister will be aware, IDA Ireland was to ensure 50% of jobs would be created outside the major cities of Dublin and Cork. However, outside of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and County Louth, the percentage of jobs attracted to rural Ireland, including my county of Donegal, which has approximately 50% of the population was 2.5% of the overall number of jobs attracted to the country. I commend IDA Ireland for its work. When I was my party's spokesperson on foreign affairs and trade, I had the opportunity to see for myself in the United States the reputation it had earned and the work it did there, but it is not attracting jobs to the regions. I note in the Minister's latest plan that he has apparently scrapped the 50% target. How can he stand over this? How could he go on a Donegal radio station or visit the county and tell the people there that the Government has its finger on the pulse and that he is aware of the extent of the crisis?

As the Minister knows, there are solutions. He does not need to listen to Sinn Féin in this respect. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and every Nobel Prize winning economist would tell him that we need to reverse the insanity of only having austerity policies. There are billions of euro in the National Pensions Reserve Fund; there is also the European Investment Bank and there are pension funds in Ireland. Therefore, there are resources that could be deployed. People must be given hope. As a representative of the people of Donegal, the level of unemployment in the county has gone from bad to worse. People there want to work and the Government must meet them half way. It must attract investment into the regions and assist employers to keep employees in work. We have given the Minister a range of proposals which we have presented in our jobs plan. I have given him the figures for my county and they are indefensible. His colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy John Perry, has joined him. I addressed the Minister of State last year and brought these numbers to his attention. The Minister knows the wider issues involved. I cannot stand here and not directly bring to his attention the scale of the crisis in County Donegal and the failure of the job creation agencies and the Government to address it. He must give the people of the county some hope. I, therefore, ask him to take on board what I have said.

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