Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I wish to raise a very important statistic, namely, the live register figure announced by the Central Statistics Office this morning. Unemployment increased by 197,781 since June 2008, which represents an increase of 90%. Rather than having crossfire regarding €20 billion deficits and all kinds of other accusations about this side of the House, it would be more in line for Senators on the Government side and the Government itself to concentrate on that figure. Everyone who constitutes the statistic is a person with a family.

Last week I spoke about job losses at ABB in Waterford. This morning, 120 job losses were announced by Bausch & Lomb, a leading-edge technology manufacturing business in the south east. Over the next few months, it will have halved its total workforce. Waterford and the south east in particular are suffering badly because of the loss of good manufacturing jobs. It is exposed more because of the presence of manufacturing in that part of the country. I ask the Leader to invite the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Mary Coughlan, to the House so we can debate job losses and the creation and protection of jobs and hear her outline what her Department proposes to do to assist in this regard.

We must offer hope to small and medium-sized enterprises. Last week I was talking to some people involved in small businesses employing eight to ten people. One said people such as he needed to see some hope and to be motivated to keep working because they are being knocked back continually. Whether because of the decline in demand for products that such companies are producing, the cutting back of the working week to three days or other factors, such companies are being knocked back regularly. They need to hear messages from the political establishment that there is light at the end of the tunnel, hope and a roadmap to help them try to emerge from the economic crisis. It is all about jobs at this stage and that is where the focus should be.