Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

Yesterday 326,000 people queued for unemployment benefit. In the past 18 months under this Government the unemployment rate and our national debt have doubled. It is necessary to focus again on the real economy, on jobs and enterprise survival. There are many things that can be done to generate employment. We need to accelerate the schools building programme, reverse the hike in value added tax, VAT, to give some relief to retailers and to provide pay related social insurance relief, PRSI, to employers in distressed companies which have problems competing.

It costs the Government more than €20,000 in social welfare payments and lost tax receipts for every job that is lost. Is it not better to intervene before rather than after companies close? It is also necessary to put in place a loan guarantee system for small businesses as part of the recapitalisation of the banks.

The principle of asking public servants to contribute more to their pensions is not unreasonable but it is not right to ask those public servants on a small wage to do so. There is no fairness in the system that is about to be introduced by the Government. We have had a plan to cut wages and to increase payments. What we need now is a plan to get people back working, to create jobs and to maintain the jobs that we have. Unfortunately, the Government is bereft of ideas. It is jaded and has no plan. I call on the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to come to the House and outline to us what the Government intends to do to tackle this national crisis of unemployment.

Every one of the 326,000 unemployed people must exist on a low wage, feed and clothe their children, bring them to school, and pay mortgages. That is what it is like when one is unemployed. We must put ourselves in the situation where we can understand how those people feel. There are many of them in my constituency now, and it is the same throughout the country. Something will have to be done, and there is nothing imaginative coming from the Government. I call on the Tánaiste to come to the House and tell Members whether the Government has a plan, or whether we just carry on as before and react to situations.