Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his views on whether the target of creating 100,000 additional jobs by 2016 as claimed in the action plan for jobs will be met [52081/12]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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In the action plan for jobs, the Government set an ambitious target of having 100,000 more people at work by 2016. Achieving this target requires a transformational change to our economy. This Government, when it came into office, was starting from a position where more than 300,000 jobs had been lost in the previous three years. Of those job losses, 150,000 were in the construction sector alone. The economy had been built on a fault line of sectors that were not sustainable in the long term.

The new economy, which we need to build, must be based on enterprise, innovation and exporting. The transformation we need to bring about will require progress on a number of fronts, including fixing our banks, reforming the public sector and embedding the jobs agenda across Government through the action plan for jobs. This is a huge task but we are making progress.

After three years of heavy job losses, we are now seeing a substantial increase in employment in export-oriented sectors. This has been backed by new policy initiatives and a strong programme of trade missions. Overall, the level of private sector employment is stabilising despite continued decline in sectors like construction and domestic banking.

There has been a strong performance by both Enterprise Ireland and IDA-backed companies. 2011 saw an increase of 6,000 jobs in IDA-supported companies, compared to net losses of 15,000 jobs between 2008 and 2010. So far this year, the IDA has announced investments with the potential to create more than 7,500 further jobs. In the case of Enterprise Ireland, we start to see a return to growth in Enterprise Ireland companies and approvals this year amount to 4,669 job commitments over the next three years. There has been double digit growth in exports from Enterprise Ireland companies and we reached a record of €15 billion in exports last year.

Sectors targeted in the action plan for jobs have made good progress, notably food, life sciences, ICT, digital games and international services. These developments demonstrate the transformation taking place to a more diversified, export-oriented and innovative economy. While we have seen a turnaround, I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge that still faces us. As a small open economy, we are influenced heavily by the challenging developments in international markets.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

However, the merit of the action plan for jobs is that every year, each Department is required to focus on changes that can be brought about to make a practical contribution to the target of supporting the creation of 100,000 extra jobs in the economy by 2016.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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We can normally ask supplementary questions. Will that be the case today?

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Yes, within the time limit of four minutes.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Is that four minutes for me to speak?

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy and the Minister, in total. The time for the exchange of questions and answers is four minutes.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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So, the longer the Minister speaks, the less time I have to speak.

It is important to bring reality back to the situation. Under this Government, unemployment is measured at 14% to 15% on the live register and long-term unemployment is at 60%. Despite some of the recent announcements, job losses continue to outnumber job gains. The only stabilising effect on employment figures in the State is emigration.

Last year, 87,000 people emigrated. Nearly one third of a million people emigrated in the last four years. That level of emigration and people on the live register is an economic failure. Given that the state of the economy is a pre-eminent measure of the quality of a government, surely this is a measure of the Government's failure also. The Minister and the Taoiseach committed to the creation of 100,000 jobs by 2016. The Minister failed to produce targets in this regard and 33,000 jobs net have been lost over the past 12 months. The Department of Finance medium-term fiscal statement predicts unemployment of 13% in 2015. After four years of this Government, even the most optimistic figures predict a reduction in unemployment of no more than a 1%.

Does the Minister accept that these figures indicate a failure in the Government's jobs policy? What level of emigration and unemployment do we have to achieve before alarm bells go off for the Government?

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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That was hardly a question at all. The Deputy is living in a dream world. We experienced an extraordinary economic shock of incredible proportions when 16% of our employment was wiped out. We are, however, stabilising that. While the Deputy refers to a 33,000 job loss, only 3,000 of those were in the private sector. The sectors we need to grow for the future are stabilising. Unfortunately, we must reduce the size of the public sector and that continues to be a pressure as we seek to stabilise and restore our public finances.

With regard to the future and the transformation necessary to create the 100,000 jobs, which is a clear target set by Government, this is going to take time. From the first day, I said it would take time and that I would not be setting annual targets because they would be unrealistic. The Deputy persists, however, in coming back with the same question.

We have a job of work to do to change an economy that has been devastated. The banks are broken and much of our costs base was smashed. Much of the base of our economy was damaged and we have to restore that. We are making progress. We see international confidence come back. The IDA had the best year in a decade last year. We are seeing indigenous companies winning new markets. That is the route to rebuilding our economy, on enterprise, innovation and exports. We are making credible progress in this area.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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I make no apology for repeatedly asking this question. On both a human and economic level this is a disastrous situation for hundreds of thousands of people. While it is possible to select sub-groups or micro-elements in the economy where there has been some level of improvement, the general figures speak for themselves. The net job loss was 33,000.

Given that the Department of Finance said there would be a 13% level of unemployment in 2015, which was a review upward from the Government's initial objective, the Government must produce 76,800 jobs before 2015. Given that the trend is negative, how will that be achieved?