Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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103. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will provide a detailed report on the Action Plan for Jobs 2014. [44356/14]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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Will the Minister provide a detailed report on the Action Plan for Jobs, where the jobs have been created and how funding for job creation is being provided?

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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The Action Plan for Jobs is a multi-annual strategy initiated in 2012 to ensure a cross-Government approach to optimising the environment for enterprise, such that a net additional 100,000 jobs will be created by 2016. Good progress is being made on the implementation of the Action Plan for Jobs 2014. Ireland's ranking in terms of competitiveness and ease of doing business continues to improve. The Central Statistics Office quarterly national household survey, as of the second quarter of 2014, shows that, seasonally adjusted, 1,906,300 people were employed, an increase of 33,500 on the previous year - approximately 2,800 jobs per month - and 68,700 from the first quarter of 2012, when the Action Plan for Jobs was launched

The 2014 plan contains 385 actions to be implemented in 2014 by all 16 Departments and by 46 agencies. Cumulatively to the end of the third quarter, 89% of those scheduled for delivery have been implemented. These actions cover delivery of supports for enterprise, actions to develop sectoral opportunities and measures that will strengthen the competitiveness and capacity of our economy to support job growth.

A series of cross-cutting disruptive reforms is being advanced in 2014. These include critical areas where we can win a competitive edge across many sectors, including big data analytics; ICT skills; integrated licensing application service, for which I have responsibility; trading online voucher scheme; energy efficiency; national health innovation hub; entrepreneurship; winning abroad; manufacturing; and national step change. Each is well advanced in implementation.

Some examples of important initiatives implemented thus far in 2014 include the launch of local enterprise offices; the launch of the Ireland's best young entrepreneur programme; additional staff in the overseas offices of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland; and record levels of new investment by Enterprise Ireland and IDA enterprises. We have launched a British-Irish visa scheme for tourist and business travellers. These are examples of some of the key wins in the context of the Action Plan for Jobs. It has been a very effective process since 2012 and we are seeing the results of its success.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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I am still none the wiser as to exactly what sectors these jobs are in, but I have noted the vast bulk of the Department's budget of €755 million for 2014 consists of grants, subsidies and other incentives to corporations. It is what is known as corporate welfare, where the State uses taxes collected from workers, and savings through cuts to public spending, to give handouts and tax incentives to big business to create jobs. In 2011 the Taoiseach stated he wanted this to be the best small country in which to do business by 2016. I have an issue with this statement because it does not imply jobs are being created for the sake of the people who will have the jobs, but that the Government is creating a climate for business people from these jobs. The philosophy is about face. It seems people are to serve the economy and private business rather than the other way around.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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To refer back to Deputy Coppinger's question, the total gross Exchequer expenditure by the Department in 2013 was €791.9 million, and 57% of this represented total capital expenditure via agencies under the Department's remit. Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and many other agencies under the aegis of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation have done remarkable work in recent years in restoring Ireland's economic reputation abroad and they give excellent value for money for the taxpayer. They work enormously hard to promote Ireland abroad and work with indigenous Irish companies to create jobs. We can see that unemployment levels in the country have reduced enormously in recent years, from a high of approximately 15.2% to 11% and dropping. There are still far too many people out of work and we need to get many more people into sustainable decent jobs, and we are making considerable progress in doing so. All of the resources available to our agencies are accounted for and spent properly, and like other Government agencies, the Department's agencies have gone through a period of reform to ensure they are streamlined, slim, fit and lean and spend taxpayers' money in the appropriate way in promoting Ireland and ensuring we create the jobs we need.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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Is the Minister of State in the Labour Party? I am not too sure any more.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I thought you were on the left. I thought you were interested in job creation.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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It used to be Labour Party policy to use public investment to create jobs, either directly in public services or elsewhere, but now it seems to go along with the ideology of doling out vast sums of money to small and medium enterprises and multinationals to try to get them to create jobs. TASC economist, Paul Sweeney, described the level of corporate welfare in Ireland as a very considerable level of direct and indirect State intervention constituting our industrial policy. It is very disappointing this is the direction in which the Minister of State has gone. The €64 billion bank bailout was already a handout to businesses on behalf of the taxpayer, but now we see a host of State agencies giving support to SMEs. A total of 80 Government business supports amounting to more than €2 billion are also available to SMEs. This policy is misdirected. The only way we will create jobs is by investing, for example in housing and house building which the Minister of State has not even mentioned in the course of his contribution, and in creating the social needs we have in society through job creation.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I find it quite depressing that somebody who claims to be of the left seems to be so anti-jobs and anti-employment. I do not inhabit the world in which Deputy Coppinger lives. I believe our State agencies should be supported in creating jobs.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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They are not creating any; that is the problem.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Deputy Coppinger would do a very good job if she returned to the thousands of her constituents who work in the foreign direct investment sector and explained to them she is not in favour of State support for Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, which support many of the jobs those constituents have and in which they work extremely hard.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Questions Nos. 104 and 105 are in the name of Deputy Durkan and are similar.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I will take the two together, no problem.