Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House. We support this Bill, which is technical in nature. I wish the staff well and welcome the guarantees provided for them which, as the Minister outlined, is quite a normal feature.

In accordance with the new mandate for Shannon Development announced by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment in July 2005, the indigenous industry functions carried out by Shannon Development under delegated authority from Enterprise Ireland will revert to Enterprise Ireland in the new year. The purpose of the Bill, as the Minister outlined, is to provide legislative authority for the Minister to designate the transfer of staff from Shannon Development to Forfás and to provide a statutory guarantee to the staff that their pay, conditions of service and pension arrangements shall be in no way be diminished by virtue of the transfer. That is to be welcomed.

Nobody could doubt the importance of Shannon Development. Traditionally, it has had functions throughout the mid-west stretching to parts of Offaly and covering Clare, north Tipperary, Limerick and north Kerry. I was delighted to hear from the Minister of the development of the Kerry deepwater zone and other developments. I hope these initiatives live up to the promise the Minister outlined.

It is unfortunate that much time has passed since the Minister originally announced almost a year and a half ago that he was stripping Shannon Development of these traditional enterprise creation functions. It was a decision many condemned at the time, not only because of the manner in which it was announced — the crucial decision was buried in a press release, as my colleague in the Dáil, Deputy Pat Breen, pointed out — but because it was done in the middle of the summer. However, earlier this year the Minister flip-flopped and opted to allow Shannon Development to retain its enterprise functions within the Shannon Free Zone.

Shannon Development should be rightly proud of its recent announcement that Digital River will provide 350 jobs over the next five years in the Shannon Free Zone. Shannon Development is to be complimented on that because Mr. Kevin Thompstone and his team have gone to great lengths throughout Europe and elsewhere in the world to find industry suitable to the region and Digital River will be a welcome asset. In the intervening period between the original decision and its reversal the relevant agencies were left in limbo about who was responsible for what.

I welcome the fact that the core expertise of Shannon Development is being retained at the Shannon Free Zone. There must be a renewed focus on enterprise creation in the remainder of the county. As Deputy Breen recently pointed out to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business, Ennis is in danger of becoming a dormitory town while the outlying towns of north, west and east Clare could all do with an employment boost. One good employer in Ennistymon is doing well. It is a digital company that exports signs throughout Europe and elsewhere in the world. Ennis in particular is suffering from a stream of job losses and I would welcome renewed efforts from the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to reverse some of the job losses we have seen in recent years.

Nationally, in the past five years more than 33,000 manufacturing jobs have relocated from Ireland to more competitive economies and more than twice that number of jobs that would have been created by companies locating here have not come to pass. Notwithstanding last week's roll-back, the Government's recent approval of large price hikes in gas and electricity in the absence of a proactive jobs policy is, at best, misguided and foolhardy and, at worst, irresponsible.

The Government is making our economy less competitive and driving manufacturing industry out of the country into more competitive countries. The recently announced price increases will also hit the already hard-pressed domestic consumer on top of the existing burden of high mortgages, long commute times and high child care costs, all of which will fully impact only in mid-2007. We cannot allow the destruction of our manufacturing industry here in the same way the Government has allowed the destruction of the sugar beet industry. Ireland has gone from being ranked fourth in 2000 to being ranked 21st this year in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report due mainly to the Government's failure to control prices.