Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My apologies. That is still not enough. We need to ensure that the entire system is focused on apprenticeships. If we look to the European model of apprenticeships, they are not only for the trades. There are many areas in which we could get involved. An issue that was not addressed yesterday is that we are still penalising those under the age of 25 with respect to social welfare. There was no reverse of that particular crucifixion that was brought in to apply to those under the age of 25 in terms of their ability to get a job. The jobs that the Ministers keeps saying are there are not there. That is one of the biggest failures of yesterday's budget. There is nothing in it to reduce and to reshape the regional imbalance that is occurring.

Dublin represents some 45% of our gross domestic product, GDP, one of the highest percentages for a capital city. For several years nothing has been done to rebalance this figure and give the regions a chance. In 2014,only 38% of IDA Ireland inward investment was outside Dublin and Cork. No increase was given yesterday in the budget for local enterprise offices, the central plank of local enterprise creation. There was no extra investment for job creation organisations which have spent their time ramping up their operations, opening up new opportunities and giving themselves more space. However, we will not reward their ambition by increasing their central government funding.

From looking at the figures and compared to the likely 2015 outcomes, next year's budget for the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation seems to have been cut by €45 million. This highlights the whole farce of the budgetary process. At midnight last Friday, the Government released a €1.5 billion estimate, effectively the size of this budget, but no coverage was given to it and there wre no live statements in the Dáil. There was no analysis of it, but it will fund many important projects and choices between now and the end of the year. It will be delivered in a haphazard way because of the way the budgetary process works. It is extraordinary that in that context the Government would cut the budget of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation by €45 million. It demonstrates the complacency creeping into the Government around employment when we still have 118,600 people in long-term unemployment, a broad jobless rate of 18% and 89,000 people on labour activation schemes. While extra allowances were given yesterday, no extra supports were. We still have a major jobs crisis and challenge, but the Government has decided the Department should have a budget cut. Up to 149,000 third level graduates have left the country since the crisis began. What opportunities are we giving to them to come home? What extra incentives are being offered to those who want to return to their home counties?

I listened to Deputy Catherine Byrne and, like all Fine Gael backbenchers today, her speech was about having a go at Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin for having no vision, etc. I remind her that the ones who made the most sacrifices were the people who have taken pay cuts, job cuts, service cuts and taxation increases in the past eight years to get to the point where we have a budget that gives a little bit back. To use the Labour Party’s phrase, “Every little helps”. On this occasion, it has actually lived up to it for the first time in five years.

I also remind Deputy Catherine Byrne and all Fine Gael sages on the economy that the political heavy lifting was done by the the late Brian Lenihan and the former Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen, who put €21 billion worth of cuts and extra taxation on the table, all of which measures were opposed by Members opposite at the time who promised they would be either reversed or rescinded. That has not happened. It is unbelievable Government backbenchers can forget that anything happened prior to 2011, as if it had nothing to do with them, or that all of those decisions made between 2008 and 2011 did not contribute to the country’s economic growth.

There are significant opportunities and we must ensure we do not return to a situation like that in 2001 and 2002 when the economy grew but we did not have the capacity to provide opportunities. That is why I welcome the apprenticeship programme and why we need to ramp it up further. We need to ensure the silos that in the past affected proper apprentice and training programmes between the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and various other Departments and agencies are knocked down and do not get in the way of people availing of the opportunities that are coming.

It would be churlish for the Government to pat itself on the back, thinking it is all done and dusted. There is still a long hard road to travel. There was nothing in the budget for those on the variable rate mortgages, despite a promise made by the Minister of Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, last May. Nothing has been given in so many areas of social care. People with dementia got nothing yesterday, about which the Alzheimer Society of Ireland was critical today. Choices were made that ignored people in distress and severe circumstances. The Government will have to answer for these choices, not in the next few weeks but certainly in the next few months.

As we move into 2016 and the commemoration of the 1916 Rising, is this a budget that befits that commemoration? If the commemoration is to be show time, with parties on the street, yes, it is a budget that will suit that kind of atmosphere. If it is a commemoration that will actually live up to the ideals of the Proclamation, restate and recast the country as the kind envisaged by those who gave their lives, it fails miserably. I hope this commemoration does a lot better.

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