Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to obtain clarification on a couple of points made by the Taoiseach. I sensed a lack of urgency at the summit on the jobs crisis, but perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, might enlighten me that the opposite was the case. When the currency seemed to be under threat and financial institutions seemed to be on the brink of collapse, various crisis meetings were held and an effort was made to resolve the issue, albeit too slowly. We have a crisis of equal magnitude in terms of unemployment across the European Union, with a particular impact in this country, but I do not get the sense in the discussions that have taken place that the same sense of urgency applies to the crisis. Will the Minister of State enlighten me on whether I missed something in what the Taoiseach said that might indicate some sense of urgency not just among the other leaders but even within the Irish delegation?

My second question is related to the first. It concerns how we deal with the shortage of credit, in particular for the small and medium enterprise, SME, sector. The Minister of State will recall that, as part of the programme for Government, the Government indicated the establishment of a strategic investment bank. In recent times that has been watered down to a strategic investment fund, but there is no sign of it emerging in any real way. We are now a couple of years further on and the sector most likely to resolve the unemployment crisis is clearly the SME sector which is starved of cash to maintain existing business or invest in new opportunities now emerging. In spite of this, there is no sign of the crisis being reflected at Council level or by the Government.

See this speech in context