Seán Conlan (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The problems we face as a country are precisely the problems we faced when we came to Government three years ago, namely, the creation of jobs, unemployment, emigration and personal and public debt issues. We have gone a long way towards tackling some of the major macroeconomic issues and we should give credit where credit is due in terms of what the Government has done in the past 12 months to deal with the bank guarantee, the promissory note deal and the removal of the troika from the country. While some said it was not a tangible thing to remove the troika, it has resulted in a major feel-good factor nationally and it has helped the national psyche in terms of people feeling more positive towards the future and the development of the country.

The Minister for Finance, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and all the Ministers in the Government deserve credit for their efforts to deal with the legacies of Fianna Fáil. We have created 61,000 jobs in the past 12 months. More than 19,500 IDA Ireland-supported jobs have been secured in the past two years as well as more than 5,000 Enterprise Ireland-supported jobs in the past 12 months. Long-term unemployment figures are down. In particular, in the counties I represent along the Border - Cavan and Monaghan - long-term unemployment figures are down.

More needs to be done on the jobs front to develop better infrastructure along the Border. There should be more joined-up thinking between the State agencies in the South and those in Northern Ireland to ensure that the peripheral areas of the North and the South are not left behind. One legacy of the past is that we still do not have a proper basic road network along the Border. It should have been put in place during the past 20 years. I realise some of the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation money went towards reopening roads but there has been no concerted, cohesive approach to developing roads. Nothing has been done in the case of the A3 from Monaghan to Belfast. At the moment the United Kingdom Government is introducing a tax on Irish trucks using Northern Ireland roads. We have gained a concession for the road between Monaghan and Dundalk through South Armagh and the road between Monaghan and Cavan through Fermanagh, but more needs to be done, and I would not limit it to the A5. There is much talk of looking for concessions for the A5 but all the major national roads, including the M1, the A4, the A5, the A3 and the A1, should be exempted from this tax. My preference is for all roads in the North to be exempted to develop an all-Ireland economy. It is a retrograde step for the British Government to introduce this tax. It will increase transport costs throughout the island and certainly it is not welcome.

Unemployment rates have come down significantly in recent years. The rate is 11.9% at the moment. More needs to be done. I believe Action Plan for Jobs, the JobsPlus scheme, the youth guarantee scheme and the local enterprise offices being introduced by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, will all help to tackle the unemployment problem.

We need to reverse the disastrous economic policies of Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil was great for Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and all of those cities because they got cheap Irish-educated labour to go over there and develop those cities. Fianna Fáil was brilliant at exporting our young people to develop those cities. Fine Gael needs to get those people back. As skill shortages emerge in the coming 18 months in the economy because of the shovel-ready projects we will be bringing on stream, whether in health, education or elsewhere, we need to advertise in those cities and make our young people over there aware of the job opportunities at home. It would represent a failure of this society if we fail to bring our young people back. It is a simple thing but it needs a concerted effort by central government to advertise in those cities and make the people in those cities aware of what is available at home and then get them back home.

I referred to investment in shovel-ready projects. Our county managers throughout the country should be mandated by central government to get design and planning out of the way for much-needed projects so that when funds become available, the projects go ahead immediately and we are not left waiting with a lag of two years, nine months or 12 months before we get started. The county managers should be mandated to establish what is needed in each of the counties and then proceed to get the design and planning stages out of the way. Many of the planning offices are under-utilised the moment. I believe this approach will pay dividends in the medium term rather than the longer term.

We are in a position now where we can avoid some of the mistakes of the past and even the present in terms of town centre development. I hate to see the situation which is constantly unfolding whereby central government, local authorities or state agencies use public money to invest in what are basically steel sheds on the edges of town centres. These buildings are of no architectural merit whatsoever. This is happening while our town centres rot and buildings of historical and architectural merit are not developed. This has been a failure of our society for many years. It should be addressed and it can be addressed, but it needs a co-ordinated approach from the various Departments. This is something we need to do now before things start to improve significantly throughout the country.

My final point relates to town centre development. While there has been an improvement in retail figures in Dublin and along the east coast, many parts of rural Ireland and small towns outside the commuter belt are not seeing any major uplift in retail. We need to develop a cohesive planning strategy to ensure that communities throughout the country have proper services in place and that some supports are put in place by the State. That is what happens in other economies and countries.

Where areas have no pharmacies, general practitioners or basic services, some State supports are put in place to look after their communities. Some might claim that this is support for retail and manufacturing and that we do not want to go down that road, but if we are to have a co-ordinated response in areas of deprivation or where there are diminished services because of emigration, it must be managed centrally. The free market does not always provide these services.

An issue affecting many Border counties is symptomatic of the fact that our society is not as competitive as it should be. It is easier for foreign companies to win tenders in the Republic than Irish companies. We must consider what we can do to make it easier for Irish companies, fully cognisant of the restrictions placed on central government by European law. For the past ten or 15 years it has been much easier for UK companies to tender for and win projects in the Republic than Irish companies. The Government must consider what further measures can be put in place to redress this imbalance. If we can do this and reduce the unemployment rate during the next four or five years to 4%, 5% or 6%, to the point at which there is effectively employment, the Government will have done the country some service.

If we want to develop a mature democracy, we must get rid of the populist politics of the past and the sticking plaster politics of Fianna Fáil and ensure we will never again have the high levels of emigration of the past ten years. It was a failure of our society in the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s that we could not educate and find work for our young people. We needed to send them across the world to find work. I hope the Government will put in place strong, sound economic measures to ensure this will not recur. That is the responsibility of everyone in politics. We must keep those on the benches opposite from getting back into power to mess up the economy again and leave people with no option but to emigrate. That is key for the Government and we are on the right track. I wish Ministers well in their tasks in the coming 12 months.

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