Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Coming out of the recession in the 1980s successive Governments focused their attentions on building a broad-based sustainable economy. That approach was best exemplified by the rainbow coalition of the 1990s with the Labour Party Minister for Finance, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, at the helm. However, in 14 years of power Fianna Fáil deconstructed this model at the bidding of their friends the developers, the builders and the bankers, who completed the golden circle. They skewed a sustainable economy and replaced it with a narrow, fragile economy built on the unsteady foundations of a construction bubble. As a consequence, when the bubble burst jobs were lost at an unprecedented rate. The construction sector was ravaged and the retail sector followed suit. Some 300,000 jobs were lost in only three years, the last three years of the Fianna Fáil Government. Unemployment jumped from 5% in 2008 to 14% by the time this Government took office in 2011. The scale, magnitude and speed of the structural collapse of our economy is unprecedented. This Government has taken on no ordinary task.

Rebuilding a shattered economy is the first objective of the Government. We need to create sustainable jobs for the thousands who have found themselves without work. One consequence of the economic collapse and the parallel banking crisis was that the flow of foreign investment to Ireland dwindled and major multinationals made thousands redundant. Confidence in Ireland evaporated internationally and in the markets. This was only two years ago. Who would have thought that only two years later confidence would be rebuilt? This Government has restored confidence in the country. International investors now have renewed faith in Ireland.

Unemployed construction workers form the greatest single category of people left unable to find work in recent years. However, the Government is taking steps and making investments that will provide hope to a great many of them. Major infrastructural projects will offer thousands of jobs to unemployed construction workers and give a welcome boost to the local economy in areas of Dublin struggling with high unemployment. The construction of the new DIT campus at Grangegorman will see the creation of many jobs for construction workers and the Grangegorman Development Agency has put in place an employment charter that will see a portion of these jobs go to local people and those on the live register. Similarly, the Government deserves great credit for ensuring that the national children's hospital project will go ahead. This will represent a significant boost to the south west of the city and the many unemployed construction workers in the area. I have worked closely with St. James's Hospital and the Department of Social Protection to ensure that as many of these jobs as possible go to local people. Beyond the children's hospital and Grangegorman projects, we should consider further infrastructural projects to create jobs in urban communities. The DART underground project is one such example. The business case for the DART is rock solid. It will bring great coherence to the existing transport infrastructure and create many jobs. Every effort should been made by the Government to ensure that the necessary capital investment is found for this major project as soon as possible.

The green economy can also play an important part in securing sustainable employment for those with the relevant skills in the construction field. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, announced recently that as many as 5,000 jobs will be created in the green energy sector through a €70 million energy efficiency fund. This, along with more than 4,000 jobs supported by retrofitting schemes, shows how the existing construction skills of the unemployed can be redeployed through appropriate training to meet the new needs of the country and the economy. These measures will bring to approximately 10,000 the number of former construction workers supported by green energy schemes. Furthermore, the development of green energy through the proposed major wind farm projects offers further opportunities for those who developed their skills during the construction boom to apply them to the new economy.

Most employment in Ireland is in the small and medium enterprise sector. The Government recognises the value of the SME sector in supporting our economy. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, is working to create an environment in which small and medium enterprises can flourish. The Government has set about identifying the factors inhibiting the growth of the sector and is tackling them in a strategic way. The strategy is to remove the obstacles, offer advice and build the capacity of our entrepreneurs to create jobs. Credit is the single greatest issue and this is why the Minister, Deputy Bruton, has launched two major new schemes to get credit flowing to businesses again, the credit guarantee scheme and the microfinance scheme. This will allow small businesses to grow and create jobs. The JobBridge scheme has been a major success for the Government. Some 52% of people who have finished JobBridge internships have gone on to secure full-time employment. Further measures, including the JobsPlus scheme announced as part of the Action Plan for Jobs recently, will incentivise employers to take long-term unemployed people off the live register. The youth guarantee, which the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, recently secured agreement for at European level, will offer either a job, work placement, traineeship, internship or education for every person under 25 years of age who has been out of work for more than four months. These are only some of the measures the Government is taking.

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