Michael McCarthy (Labour)

During the debate and talk about economic doom and gloom last week, the Minister, Deputy Cullen, sadly announced the abandonment of the sports capital programme. It has served sporting organisations and rejuvenated and consolidated rural communities. It has funded sports clubs for young people. It has given people in rural Ireland a great opportunity to fundraise and develop their local communities. That was a retrograde decision by the Minister. We should not forget that this is a Minister who, I believe, is ostensibly an anti-rural Ireland politician. I say that because he is the Minister who abolished the first-time buyer's grant when he was Minister with responsibility for local government. He is also the Minister who increased, in some cases by 600%, the planning and development charges attached to one-off houses in rural areas. The combined financial calamity of that decision is about €10,000, which has impacted on many young people throughout the country.

Given that he has now kicked rural Ireland further in the gut, will the sports capital programme be reactivated in 2010? What will happen to the money that has been raised through the national lottery system? Given that grants will not be paid this year, what will become of that money? I want the Leader to ask in particular if a cost benefit analysis was carried out prior to this decision. If the answer to that question is yes, I would judge the decision, in its entirety, to be ill advised.

The unemployment statistics released yesterday are frightening. I was in the company of other Oireachtas Members when the announcement was made on the news yesterday. The reaction on their faces was a sight to behold. Given that the numbers out of work have reached 327,000, is it not time that we debate in earnest how to provide job creation opportunities, employment schemes and return to education schemes? We must ensure there are upskilling and retraining opportunities for those who lose their jobs, particularly the many workers in the construction industry who did not go on to third level education because of the lure of the earnings to be made on building sites. These people are now seeking work without the benefit of a skill or trade. Training schemes must be brought up to a standard that reflects the current economic difficulty.

In conjunction with Senator O'Donovan, I intend to press the amendments I have tabled on Committee Stage of the Harbours (Amendment) Bill 2008. Our names appear jointly under some of the amendments. I advise Members on the Government side to follow us into the lobbies if they are serious and determined in their views on that legislation.