Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----in which people are free to achieve anything they set out to do and to reap the rewards of their efforts. I want it to be a country where no lack of jobs, housing or services will hold individuals back in terms of their ambitions. Our first priority is to complete the task of recovering all of the jobs lost during the recession in order that no one will be left unemployed or under-employed against his or her will. We call this full employment and we have an ambitious plan to achieve it by 2020. That plan will involve the continued transformation of welfare and job support services in order to transition everybody who is long-term unemployed back into paid employment. There will be major reforms in this area in 2015 as we continue to roll out our JobPath initiative. Next year, by means of our construction and social housing strategies, we will work to establish a sustainable construction sector that will provide the housing our people so desperately need. New job creation and a growing economy for our ambitious reform plans will also help us to deliver better services designed to help people reach their full potential. We have outlined such reform plans in respect of the areas of education, health care, social welfare and many others. There will be changes in those areas not only next year but also in the following year.

The Government and I, as Taoiseach, have succeeded, by working in partnership with the people, in bringing our country back from the brink of the economic abyss. We remain fully focused on our plan for Ireland's recovery. Nothing will distract us from the important work of improving the lives of our people. We will finish the task we were given by the people and secure the recovery for the benefit of every single person. I have no intention of creating any instability by calling a general election in 2015. My preference for government after the election in 2016 is for a continuation of the coalition of Fine Gael and Labour that has restored our economic sovereignty.

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