John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy John Perry, has expressed his frustration at the motion and I feel the same way. I was watching the debate on the monitor before coming to the House and could only wonder what was the purpose of the Sinn Féin motion, apart from kicking the Government in an opportunistic way, as Opposition parties do. I can see no other reason for it. With no disrespect to Deputy Dara Calleary, the only part of the motion with which I can agree is that the mismanagement of the previous Government was horrendous. It would drive anybody insane delving into what went on that allowed 250,000 jobs - 90,000 or so a year - to be lost. What happened was embarrassing.

I would like to refer to two points made by Deputy Sandra McLellan. She described the response of Fine Gael and the Labour Party as disastrous and said we did not care. As a backbencher who works his backside off, like the Minister and Minister of State, I find it incredibly insulting that it is thought the Government does not care. I live in an area in which the people would agree with many of the points made in the motion. I can see poverty and unemployment all around me, in particular youth employment. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is the successive bad decisions taken by the previous Government. If the Government did not care, does Sinn Féin think it would have developed a Youth Guarantee scheme? Does it think the Ministers, Deputies Richard Bruton and Joan Burton, would have been in Brussels last week brokering a €6 billion deal to deal with the biggest issue we face in Ireland and Europe, youth unemployment? Would we be introducing a pilot scheme in Ballymun to give the people about whom Sinn Féin talks the opportunity to upskill in order that they can find jobs for which they are not qualified currently? Would we be implementing social clauses to allow new jobs to be taken up by unemployed persons? Would we introduce the likes of the jobs plus scheme which provides incentives for businesses that cannot afford to take on new workers to encourage them to do so? Would we have developed the JobBridge scheme for people with all of the qualifications theyed need from university but who lacked experience? That scheme has a 52% success rate and within five months of somebody leaving it, the success rate rises to 62%. Deputies might ask about the people who left the JobBridge scheme or were not part of that 62%. When all of the people who had not completed the scheme were asked why, two thirds of them said they had left the scheme to take up a job. If we did not care, we would not develop a Youth Guarantee scheme or social clauses to try to get people back to work and give them the skills they need. We would not develop Springboard or Momentum which is being developed to cater for long-term unemployed persons about whom Sinn Féin says we do not care. If we did not care about them, we would not develop these courses to help them to upskill for the jobs available. We know from private industry that if there were more people with these skills, these industries would come here and invest.

If ours is not a caring Government, why is it doing all of these things? It is insulting and demoralising to hear an Opposition party such as Sinn Féin state the Government is uncaring. I have the height of respect for Deputies Sandra McLellan and Michael Colreavy, but politics are being played tonight. They are pulling a fast one. They are looking for an opportunity to say the Government is not doing a good job, but the facts speak for themselves. We are doing one hell of a good job in the bad times in which we find ourselves. We have brought the country from a place where more people were leaving than we wanted to leave. We are turning the boat around. Some 250,000 people lost their jobs during the term of office of the last Administration. During the past 15 months there was a net increase in jobs of 15,000. Ours is a caring Government. We care about society and the people. That is why we have the Pathways to Work programme and the Action Plan for Jobs, part 2. Given time, these programmes will deliver. We inherited a disastrous situation and are doing the best we can to turn it around. We see the shoots on the ground, but God forbid that an Opposition politician would come here and be honest and admit this. We are making changes for the better.

I have a reason for not believing in Sinn Féin's motion. I stood in the general election in 2011 and all over Ballymun and Finglas I saw on huge billboards promoting Sinn Féin the phrase, "We will reverse the budget cuts". That was what Sinn Féin promised the people, but it is being opportunistic. It knew then that it could not reverse the budget cuts. In its stimulus plan it realises we still need to meet a €3.5 billion deficit. It told the people fibs at the time and has told them fibs constantly since. Tonight, it is telling them again, saying the Government is not doing a good job. It should wake up and join us. It should engage in some constructive criticism, less of the fantasy economics and more of the sound, grounded economics that will give life and dignity to the people about whom we are talking about. The best thing we can do is give them €1 in their pocket and the dignity of work. That is what the Action Plan for Jobs and Pathways to Work have been doing and what every Government backbencher, the Minister and the Minister of State have been doing for the past two years. We are trying to turn the economy around to give people a reason to participate in society.

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