Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I agree with other Senators. Yesterday's OECD report on the economy makes for interesting reading. The OECD is an organisation which three years ago stated house prices would level off or decline slightly. Last year it stated Irish banks were well capitalised and profitable. Therefore, we should not accept it as the oracle of all wisdom. Having said that, there are some very interesting points in the report which deserve further analysis and reflection. For instance, in the section on boosting competitiveness, it recognises the fact that education has produced great benefits for Irish society and suggests further investment is needed in pre-primary education and in-work training. The section on NAMA states temporary nationalisation of the banks should not be ruled out, a point my party has been making. In terms of participation in the labour force, the report notes we can increase female participation by removing a number of obstacles in the system.

On unemployment, key issues include the fact that it does not believe sufficient measures are being taken by the Government to encourage more people to leave the dole queues and return to work. We agree with this. Yesterday in the House my colleague, Senator Alex White, warned about the spectre of the loss of a generation of young people to emigration because of unemployment levels in the country. The OECD is correct in this respect and we need to see greater efforts being made. The announcement this morning that the special task force on job creation which was set up by the Taoiseach in January has met just once is pathetic. At a time when hundreds of thousands of our people are out of work it is not good enough. I ask the Leader to relate this to the Taoiseach and make sure a greater effort is made in the area of job creation.