Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to express my full confidence in Deputy Joan Burton as Tánaiste in the Fine Gael-Labour Party partnership Government and indeed in her nominee to the position of chair of the Pensions Authority. I also express confidence in the plan we have implemented to bring the country back from the brink of economic catastrophe.

Fine Gael and Labour put these plans together at a time of very deep crisis as we entered office: our banks were on the brink of collapse, our public finances were in chaos, our international reputation was destroyed and our people were both out of hope and out of work. The previous Fianna Fáil-led Government's reckless mismanagement of the country's economy saw Ireland excluded from being able to borrow on the international markets and the humiliating troika bailout of our country that made headlines around the world.

On this day five years ago the country was gripped by an economic crisis. The public finances were out of control and jobs were being lost at an alarming rate. On entering office, we set out a plan and, working with the people, we have worked our way back towards recovery. Today we see the early results because today Ireland is the fastest-growing economy in Europe. Government borrowing has fallen from 11% of GDP in 2010 to less than 2% last year. Since the low point of 2012, some 135,000 new jobs have been added to the economy. Unemployment is down from a peak of over 15% to 8.8% and will continue to fall in the time ahead.

However, there would be little point in creating new jobs if those on the dole queues could not fill them. The reform of our welfare system under the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton, remains an essential part of our long-term economic plan to reach full employment and keep this recovery going. The Tánaiste has driven this reform agenda over the past five years as Minister for Social Protection. The reforms she has introduced were absolutely necessary considering the unprecedented unemployment challenge we inherited from the previous Fianna Fáil-led Government.

What was worse than the 15% unemployment was that many people and entire families were abandoned on the dole queues by a passive welfare system. Fianna Fáil's disastrous hands-off approach to social welfare policy that avoided taking any decisions or implementing any difficult reforms led directly to families - parents and their children - being trapped in cycles of joblessness, poverty and welfare dependency.

Instead of investing in job-support services and helping to get people who were long-term unemployed back into the world of work, the Fianna Fáil Party just hiked welfare payments without reform which ensured that even during the so-called boom years Ireland suffered from one of the highest rates of jobless households in Europe. Our commitment to everyone is that we will not go back to that style of government. I want to see people independent in work and not dependent on welfare. We believe that a job is the best route out of poverty, that work should pay and that people should not be abandoned on the dole queues. This Fine Gael-Labour Government will break that endless cycle of poverty by getting people off those welfare queues and into jobs.

The first Pathways to Work strategy has been successful in reducing by almost 40% the numbers of people unemployed since 2012. The establishment of the Intreo offices throughout the country and new activation programmes and supports such as JobBridge, JobsPlus, Springboard courses, MOMENTUM courses, the new housing assistance payment and the Youth Guarantee are all engaging with unemployed people every day to bring them back into work.

I saw this in opening a number of Intreo offices with the Tánaiste. We spoke to the group leaders who meet groups of people who are unemployed. They deal individually with people who might have a particular motivation, incentive or aspiration to follow an upskilling or training course, learn a language, computer skills or whatever to get into the world of work. These developments have also contributed to decreases in long-term unemployment from 9.5% to 5% and in youth unemployment from 33% to 19.2%. While we have made progress, we recognise that this rate is still too high. We are determined that nobody will be left behind by the economic recovery now under way in the country.

Changing the perception of and culture in the new Intreo welfare offices has changed the way that employers look at lists of people who sign on because they see them as people with the potential to fill very responsible positions in their own areas of employment. We have first-hand evidence of multinationals committing to take X number of people from the live register of unemployed people because their CVs are such that they can be upskilled or retrained and given opportunities to fill very responsible positions.

The Government is not yet finished the job. We are determined to keep this recovery going through a simple long-term plan based on three fundamental steps: more jobs spread right across the country, making work pay and as a consequence sensible investment in public services. The employment of teachers, nurses, gardaí, resource teachers and special needs assistants is vital in making people's lives that much better. More people in work creates the resources to cut taxes for working people and to invest in better services, creating a virtuous circle of rising employment and improving living standards and people's lifestyles.

Yesterday in Naas we launched the national plan for jobs. Our aim is to create a further 200,000 jobs by 2020. As part of that we will bring back 70,000 people who have left Ireland for whatever reason and are now working abroad. By making work pay through tax and welfare reform we can boost the economy, create more jobs and secure the recovery for everybody.

We have begun to tackle the marginal tax rates on middle-income earners and have reduced the marginal rate of tax to below 50% for all earners under €70,000. It is our intention to continue to phase out the USC in future budgets, while also reforming the income tax system to cap the benefits for the highest earners and to keep the income tax system broad. While making these necessary changes to the tax system we want to protect the progress made in restoring the public finances thereby allowing us to invest sensibly in public services in terms of gardaí, teachers, nurses and so on.

In the future the Government has set out to cap public spending increases to below the underlying growth rate of the economy to ensure we never slip back to the days of boom and bust. As a Government we aim to eliminate the budget deficit entirely in 2017.

The Government that I am proud to lead and work with the Tánaiste as leader of the Labour Party has a clear plan to keep this economy going to build on the progress we have made as a nation.

Since her appointment as Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, and I have worked very closely in the delivery and management of the Government's work. The Tánaiste and I have a shared determination to continue to work to secure the economic recovery of this country and to see that the benefits of a strong economy are used to improve the daily lives of all the people. We are both fully committed to asking the people, in due course, to re-elect this Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, so we can finish the job we started in 2011, having been given the mandate by the people to fix our public finances and put our country back to work.

When I listened to the contributions from Deputies opposite, I saw no vision nor did I hear any plan. I listened to opportunism and gamesmanship on a whole raft of issues. We will not take any lectures from my good friend over there, Deputy Ross. He has judged character before when making comments from that very seat. I recall when he was the cheerleader for some of the people in Anglo Irish Bank who used the facility of the Fourth Estate - Deputy Ross's other professional capacity - to put pressure on other banks to appoint dynamic bankers with stellar careers from Anglo Irish Bank into senior positions. That record is there for all to see in black and white, which I am sure Deputy Ross understands.

This Government stands by its record of jobs, stability, growth and recovery. Accordingly, I am very happy to support the Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, as Deputy Leader of the Government, and to commend her continued success to the House.

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