Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Therefore, obfuscating the growth in the agrifood sector does not fool me. Is the Minister really trying to tell me that anybody believes the BMW region outperformed the southern and eastern region in employment growth by two to one? Is he really telling me that anybody believes the south east was the best-performing region in terms of employment creation in this State, with an increase in employment of 8.4% last year, followed by the Border region, with an increase in employment of 8%, and the midlands region, with an increase of 5%, and that Dublin languished in fourth place with 2.7%? Is he telling me he really believes that 60,000 new jobs were created, or is he telling me that the CSO said that for reasons it pointed out, and to which the Minister has alluded, the figures actually show that employment creation in this State in the past year was half of the figure consistently quoted by Government Ministers?

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