Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----is due to issue by the end of this month. A total of 13,000 direct and many more indirect jobs are expected to be created by this programme. Earlier this year I announced €150 million of direct Exchequer capital and a further €250 million of PPPs. The extra Exchequer money is being invested in 28 badly needed school projects, maintaining the local road network and a local authority housing insulation scheme. All 25,000 local authority houses that are not insulated will be insulated under this programme. We are now including social procurement contract clauses in schools capital works for the first time ensuring a proportion of the workforce is drawn from the long-term unemployed.

Investment in our recovery is, of course, not confined to central government. Commercial semi-State investment in the next three years is set to reach €5 billion. Through NAMA, as the Minister for Finance has mentioned, we will invest a further €2 billion in Irish commercial property in the next two years.

We are transforming the National Pensions Reserve Fund into the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund to invest on a commercial basis in projects in Ireland rather than in projects across the globe, projects in Ireland that support economic activity and employment here. The value of the NPRF discretionary portfolio at the end of June 2013 was €6.4 billion.

Members will be aware that the Government recently successfully concluded the award of the national lottery licence for a figure in excess of €400 million. I have already pledged to this House that €200 million of this dividend will be and is ring-fenced to ensure the construction of the national children's hospital, under the direction of my colleague the Minister for Health. I am pleased to be able to announce that the further €200 million in capital spending arising from the balance of lottery licence proceeds will be used to support local economic activity and job creation. These projects will, of course, be subject to public spending codes. The €200 million is to be invested from the lottery licence in 2014 and will help to fund:

- road maintenance and repair works;

- a new round of sports capital grants;

- the building of a new national indoor training arena at the National Sports Campus;

- the Better Energy programme;

- housing adaptation grants for older people and people with a disability;

- the National City of Culture initiative;

- the development of a large-scale multi-functional events centre in Cork;

- the Wild Atlantic Way driving route tourism project along the west coast; and

- a number of 1916 commemorative projects.

The funding allocations for these and other projects will be included in the Revised Estimates volumes for 2014, which will be published before the end of the year. I will refer to further allocations from this programme later in my speech.

Arising from our State asset sales programme, now well advanced, and the classification of the State's investment in Irish Water, I hope to be in a position to announce a further programme of capital investment next year.

Healing the Scars

The last six years have left both emotional and physical scars on this country. Nowhere is this problem more acute than in the area of housing.

We have allocated €10 million to resolve the problems at Priory Hall, a particular blot on the national psyche and an example of all that was wrong under the last Government. In addition, €10 million will be provided for an unfinished housing estate resolution initiative. Details of the scheme will be announced by my colleague, the Minister responsible for housing, later today.

I am allocating €30 million of the lottery licence proceeds to recommence, for the first time in many years, the State's housing building programme. This will facilitate up to 500 additional housing units between a small number of new builds and the restoration of previously uninhabitable units to the housing stock. I regard these two measures as extremely important and I hope to return to further enhancing those measures as resources allow.

Job Creation and Activation

As I stated earlier, job creation continues to be the top priority for this Government. While the numbers in employment have risen by 33,800 this year and the unemployment rate is down from 15.1% in 2012 to 13.3% in September, we all recognise the seriousness of the challenge that remains. We will continue to invest in the people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of work.

Pathways to Work 2 sets out our strategy for tackling unemployment and, in particular, long-term unemployment. The total 2014 allocation for activation places in education and training and work experience is €1.6 billion. This will provide nearly 300,000 places in work, education and training programmes across the Departments of Social Protection and Education and Skills, an increase of 18,000, or 7%, since 2012.

Importantly, of these places, 94,000 will be reserved for the long-term unemployed, an increase of 78% on the 2012 provision. I am providing an additional €9 million in capital expenditure to complete the roll-out of the one-stop-shop Intreo offices to provide better services for the unemployed seeking work.

I am allocating a further €14 million to a youth guarantee fund, which will support additional activation places for people under 25. It is in this context that we are extending the €100 reduced rate of jobseeker’s allowance and supplementary welfare allowance to existing recipients who reach 22 and for new entrants aged up to 24 on or after 1 January next.

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