Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government's Action Plan for Jobs was announced 18 months ago and has been re-announced quite a few times since. It was due to create 100,000 jobs by 2016. How credible is the commitment given in the Government's previous promises on job creation that, unfortunately, have not come to fruition? How credible can today's announcement be when the Government has not achieved its targets? NewERA, a Fine Gael document from some time ago, was due to create 100,000 jobs. Where has that gone? To the best of my knowledge, the only job created by NewERA is the role for the Minister of State from County Louth. There is quite a bit to go.

This announcement is even more extraordinary, given the fact that Fianna Fáil's call, which was made more than one and a half years ago, for measures to improve employment, including the use of the National Pensions Reserve Fund, NPRF, was ignored until the country was back in recession.

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