Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my constituency colleague, Deputy Wallace, to the House and to Priority Questions. As he is aware, job creation is a critical priority for Government. In July 2012 the Government announced its plans for an additional €2.25 billion investment in public infrastructure projects in Ireland. The most important contribution capital investment can make is to provide the capacity for the economy to grow, which, in turn, will create jobs. The largest portion of the stimulus package included €1.4 billion to fund the proposed new public private partnership, PPP, programme and the delivery of this was the initial focus for my Department. This €1.4 billion investment is additional to the direct investment by the Exchequer in infrastructure, which will be some €3.4 billion this year. That is a great deal of money.

In July I announced details of the first tranche of the Exchequer phase of projects worth €150 million. This investment will be in schools, roads and local authority energy efficiency projects. Under the latter, retrofitting will take place in respect of some 25,000 local authority houses. Progress is being made on the roll-out of the roads projects by the relevant local authorities and I am informed that the money allocated will be completely expended this year. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport expects to spend its full allocation of €50 million by the end of the year. The Department of Education and Skills expects to spend approximately €10 million of its additional allocation on various projects by the end of the year. The balance will be rolled over into next year.

Activity on the PPP programme is well under way, with five of the nine projects already issued to market. The flagship Grangegorman project, which is valued at over €200 million, is due to issue in the coming weeks. I am pleased to report that there has been very active market engagement from both investors and construction companies in this area. That reflects the growing confidence in the Irish economy. Investment in the projects included in the stimulus package is expected to generate significant numbers of jobs throughout the country. Analysis of each sector indicates that the investment in PPP projects will generate in the region of 13,000 direct jobs and many more indirect jobs.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

At this early stage in the process, most of the employment impact has been in the technical and advisory areas. The indicative timetable for the projects suggests construction is expected to commence on the first roads project by the end of 2013 and on the accommodation projects by quarter four of 2014.

As part of the ongoing monitoring of employment in respect of current PPPs, the most recent figures from the schools bundle 3 project indicate 4,079 man months of full-time equivalent employment have been engaged up to the end of August. We will also be monitoring the level of employment being created during the construction of the N11 and Newlands Cross PPP which commenced in June.

My Department, together with the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, and the sponsoring authorities has examined how to maximise job creation as part of each tender competition. As a result of this, a pilot is under way for the schools building programme. In that context, tender competitions will now include a clause which sets out particular employment requirements such as 10% of the aggregate number of person weeks carried out on the site to be undertaken by those who are recruited from the ranks of the long-term unemployed. In addition, 2.5% of the aggregate number of person weeks carried out on the site will be undertaken by apprentices. Feedback received by my Department from the NDFA is that the Intreo office in the Department of Social Protection is very keen to become involved in this initiative and is actively setting up the relevant contacts with contractors at local level. Enterprise Ireland is also involved in running workshops and "Meet the Buyer" events aimed at the SME sector. The NDFA's initial impression is that the initiative is working well.

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