Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Government's priorities for 2014. The attitude adopted to this debate in recent weeks by the Opposition shows that it has not learned any lessons from the past. Before I arrived in this House - at a time when the country had more money than sense - announcements relating to Government priorities were made in hotel function rooms rather than in this Chamber. Deputy Martin likes to refer to the importance of the role of Parliament. This debate reflects the importance of the Parliament by giving Members - regardless of party affiliation - an opportunity to send a clear message to the Government regarding their views and those of their constituents on what it should prioritise for the coming year. This is a welcome debate and I thank the Government and the Taoiseach for facilitating it.

We have come a long way in three years and today's sale of ten year bonds clearly shows as much. They have now reached a record low; never before have we sold ten year bonds at below 3%. That in itself is a reflection of the work the Government has done to restore international and economic credibility to the State. However, for the second half of this Government's term the work will involve how we take the recovery and stability from a macro level and bring it to every community in the country and to every family and home. That is the body of work that remains to be carried out. I will briefly focus on five areas that I am keen for the Government to prioritise and work on in the coming year.

The first is the area of youth unemployment. We need to maximise and harness everything we possibly can from the youth guarantee scheme. The scheme was negotiated by the Irish Government during our Presidency of the European Union Council. The scheme gives our young people an opportunity to tap in to training programmes and further education. It sends out a message that the country does not simply say to young people who are unemployed that they should go down to the dole office and get their giro. Rather, it says that they have a future in this country, that we need their brains, energy and enthusiasm and that we need to harness these for the future of our economy and society. The plan submitted by the Government to the European Commission for approval in respect of how we wish to implement the youth guarantee scheme in the country is a welcome step, but we need to do more. We must consider the programmes we have in place for entrepreneurship and other areas that we could tailor to encourage our young people to get involved in entrepreneurship. The statistics in the country for the number of young people who set up their own business is significantly behind the European average and I hope this is something we can try to rectify.

We need to examine how we fund many other services. One crucial example is the disability sector. We have seen relevant examples at the Committee of Public Accounts and people have read about it in newspapers in recent weeks and months. The State took the view that its only responsibility to people with disabilities was to write a cheque and then instruct the service provider to provide the services. That was clearly not good enough and we have seen the problems that can arise when there is no proper oversight. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to the introduction of individualised funding or personalised budgets for people with disabilities. We promised this model of funding during the election, we campaigned on it and both parties put it into the programme for Government. If such a model was in place then it would not be possible for issues such as those relating to the Central Remedial Clinic or the Rehabs of this world to arise. They would not arise if we had a situation in which the client was empowered. There is no way any other citizen in the country would be treated the way people with disabilities are treated in respect of that funding model.

We need to continue to prioritise and work on the area of mortgage arrears. I know the banks are due before the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform in April. Progress is being made in this regard but we need to continue to work on it and get the message out to the banks that telling people that a voluntary sale is the only option is not a long-term sustainable mortgage solution.

We also need to realise and get the message out as we approach the local elections that our local economies and local government structures need to play their part. If I open any local newspaper in the country I will see references to an individual calling on the Government to do something, and this has been the case for far too long. There is a role for a Government and national bodies but there is a role for councils, councillors and local communities as well. The establishment of the local enterprise offices will afford an opportunity for debates and discussions on structures to revitalise our main streets and how to bring the recovery from a national level down to a local level.

We need to re-examine our education system. We need to figure out how to ensure that it continues to be relevant to our economy and society. One area we need to examine is how we teach information technology and computing in schools. People used to ask what the business language of the world was and someone would suggest that it was French or Chinese. Another language of business in the world now is coding. We have seen major work done by organisations such as CoderDojo and we have seen major companies such as PayPal locate in this country but we must realise that teaching people how to type on a word processor in schools has nothing to do with the knowledge economy. We need to go on to take the next steps. These are the five areas I hope the Government will continue to work on and give some priority to during 2014.

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