Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on the topic of delivering sustainable full employment. When I entered politics in 2011, the country was in the financial mess left behind by the previous Fianna Fáil Government. Unemployment was at an all-time high, with almost 18,000 men and women unemployed in County Louth alone. In the final three years of that Fianna Fáil Government's term of office, almost 2,000 jobs in Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland companies in Louth were lost. Our brightest young men and women were emigrating daily at an alarming rate. I remind the House, particularly those on the Opposition benches, that this was only five years ago. While it was only five years ago, I wonder if those on the Opposition benches have developed a convenient form of memory loss as they seem to forget, and at times even deny, the mess they left behind. Other Opposition parties want, if given the opportunity, to return us to the boom-and-bust policies that got us in the mess in the first instance. They must believe it is possible to provide world-class public services without having any credible way to pay for them. It is time that these parties got real and started to develop policies that provide real solutions to the problems we face. Simply making noise will never provide a solution.

Let us examine some of the real solutions the previous Fine Gael Government introduced. As I have already mentioned, almost 18,000 men and women were unemployed in County Louth when we took over in 2011. In November 2015, the number of men and women unemployed in County Louth stood at just over 12,500, which was a drop of just under 6,000 or 30%. In the space of just five years, the Fine Gael Government reduced unemployment in County Louth by 30%. That is a real solution to a real problem. Over the past three years, new jobs have been created in County Louth by the many small and medium-sized business which have started to benefit from the economic recovery put in place by Fine Gael. Louth has also benefited from foreign direct investment, with one in ten jobs created in the past three years arising in that sector. Companies such as PayPal, eBay, National Pen, SalesSense, East Coast Bakehouse, Prometric and Moorehill Lodge are just some of the larger entities in Louth that have been instrumental in creating jobs alongside our many SMEs. I mentioned the 2,000 Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland jobs lost by the last Fianna Fáil Government. We have replaced those jobs in the past three years. In 2014 alone, an extra 101 permanent IDA Ireland jobs and 461 Enterprise Ireland full-time jobs were created in County Louth.

While there is no doubt that the Fine Gael-led Government has done exceptionally well in fixing the mess left behind by Fianna Fáil, we should not think that our work is complete. While overall unemployment figures have dropped below 8% in just the last week, we must continue to work towards full employment. The Action Plan for Jobs, which was introduced in 2012, has been a great success. A new strategy for 2016 to 2020 is firmly in place and we are committed to creating an additional 200,000 jobs in that period. Of those, 135,000 will be created outside Dublin. We are also committing to reducing unemployment to 6% by 2020, although I take the view that we will surpass this figure before that deadline. The jobs target for 2016 was 50,000 jobs but in the first three months of the year alone, almost 16,000 new jobs were created. There are those opposite who say jobs are only being created in Dublin and then only in certain sectors, but the fact is that all regions are experiencing an increase in jobs and new jobs have been created in 12 of the 14 economic sectors. In my own constituency of Louth, almost 6,000 more men and women are in employment than was the case in the disastrous period of the last Fianna Fáil Government.

We must never forget the mess in which that Fianna Fáil Government left the country. The country was financially destroyed and was losing its young people to emigration. We had to rely on financial assistance from others just to pay our bills. In other words, Ireland was a basket case. No matter on what side of the House one sits, one must acknowledge that the previous Fine Gael-led Government saved the country from financial ruin. We are now entering a new phase and I am sure the policies defined in the partnership programme for Government will continue to create the jobs which, in turn, will fund the public services we all strive to provide.

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