Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on jobs - an issue that is relevant to everybody in the country, employed or unemployed, business people and people trying to promote business.

The narrative in regard to job creation must change a little. We hear a lot of spin from government and claims about job creation but we must ensure the narrative around the issue recognises that jobs are created by entrepreneurs and business people, not the Government. The Government however does create the conditions that allow job creation to happen. It is wrong of the Government to take ownership of actions in terms of job creation when it is the people who take the risk in expanding their businesses who create the jobs and pay the wages of employees.

I welcome the fact that our economy is improving and that the trend is in the right direction but there are still more than 300,000 people on the live register and there is little comfort for the Government in that. The perfect economic storm we experienced must be seen as the backdrop to this issue. The economy has benefited from low interest rates, a favourable euro currency exchange rate with sterling and the dollar and historically low energy importation costs. However, we face stark challenges in regard to retaining existing jobs and attracting the establishment of businesses in the future. These challenges range from Brexit, declining competitiveness, infrastructure deficits, rising business costs, failed activation schemes, for example, JobBridge, to skills shortages. Previous governments have neglected job creation in the regions. We know that and the figures prove it. I represent the mid-west region and one only needs to talk to people in my neck of the woods to be made aware of the position. The figures issued by the CSO in recent days show this to be true.

The two-tier recovery has taken hold and has concentrated growth disproportionately. Fianna Fáil believes in a country where decent, hard working people can thrive, not just survive. We must recognise that people who are working must be able to thrive rather than just work to get by. While the latest CSO job figures are welcome, with unemployment under 8% nationally, challenges still exist regarding the type of jobs we have. We had debate in this House over the past two nights on many of the challenges that exist - zero-hour contracts, minimum wage and an acceptable living wage. It is unacceptable that more than a fifth, 21%, of Irish people live in jobless households. In some households, there is generational joblessness. The number of jobless households is almost double the EU average. The underlying precariousness of work must be addressed to deliver decent jobs with decent pay to enable workers to meet weekly financial commitments. This need too was underlined in debate over the past nights. People on zero-hour contracts cannot make any life plans and cannot enter any financial commitments.

Fianna Fáil has consistently put forward a suite of measures to encourage entrepreneurship and domestic job creation, including a proposal for the most competitive entrepreneur CGT rate of any party and a proposal to end the tax inequity faced by the self-employed. SMEs continue to be choked for credit and there is a serious problem in that regard. Fianna Fáil has been relentless in advocating the creation of a State enterprise bank, by licensing the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland to lend directly to businesses.

That is something we will continue to pursue.

I want to mention the CSO quarterly national household survey, because it has some very stark figures. In the year to Q1 of 2016 there was a broad jobless rate of about 17% of the Irish work force, which includes the official number of unemployed at 179,500, in addition to the almost 80,000 persons on public activation schemes and 99,000 part-time workers who would like to have full-time work and who are categorised as underemployed. This brings the jobless rate up to 17%, a very high number which we need to keep in mind.

There is a two-tier recovery, with differences between the greater Dublin area and the east coast by comparison with the other regions. There has been a clear failure of Government policy in the context of trying to strike a balance between regions. Some 50% of all jobs created in the 12 months to Q4 of 2015 were in Dublin and it is worrying that three regions out of eight nationally, namely, the midlands, the south east and the south west, saw their unemployment rate increase in Q1 of 2016 compared to the previous quarter. While unemployment rates are lowest in the capital and the greater Dublin area, hovering between 6% and 7%, the rate is significantly higher in other regions, at 11.6% in the midlands, 12.5% in the south east and 12.2% in the west.

Some 50% of all IDA site visits from 2012-15 were in Dublin and 48.7% of total IDA jobs in 2014 were in Dublin and the eastern region. The midlands, north east and north west have been almost ignored, with the number of IDA jobs there accounting for just 2.3%, 2.5% and 3% of the total. The two-tier recovery is impacted by a lack of proper visits to those areas. Some 43% of Irish GDP is generated in Dublin. London can be compared to Dublin, being a capital city, but it accounts for 20% of the UK's total GDP. The Irish concentration on our capital is double this figure.

The long-term unemployed are a huge challenge. When we had full employment in this country there was still a significant cohort of people who were long-term unemployed. Some 100,600 citizens remain long-term unemployed, amounting to 54% of total unemployment, which is a huge challenge that has to be met.

A huge challenge is also coming our way in the shape of Brexit and we need a more active campaign to encourage Irish people living in Britain and British people living in this country to register to vote, which they can do before 7 June in time for the polling date of 23 June. The potential downside of Brexit is enormous. A report from George Lee yesterday dealt with the impact on farming and I am hearing this in my clinics, as we all are. Some people are trying to spin the idea that Ireland can benefit from more foreign direct investment and relocations from the city of London into this country but this is not supported by the ESRI and others. We have a high FDI concentration in this country but it does not flow into the studies relating to this issue. We can only lose if Brexit happens and the consequences for our farming and export industries are enormous.

We have an infrastructure deficit. The previous Government announced a capital investment programme which was largely inadequate in certain regions. In my own region and in my constituency, for example, a motorway from Limerick to Cork is hugely necessary and a motorway from Limerick to Waterford, to connect the mid-west region to Waterford and onto Rosslare, is also hugely important. There many examples of deficits in our infrastructure which will severely hamper job creation.

I want to refer finally about activation schemes. The JobBridge scheme is to be scrapped and Fianna Fáil believes it should be replaced with a new model, which would offer better terms and conditions for interns seeking experience in the workplace. JobBridge has been exploitative and has been abused by too many. Whatever scheme is introduced it will have to take account of the downside experiences of the JobBridge scheme so that people are given the opportunity to get on the jobs ladder and better themselves.

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