Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

It reminds one of the statement by Michael McDowell that gangland crime was over. He referred to gangland murders as the last sting of a dying wasp. We saw George Bush on a warship saying, "Mission accomplished"; that the war was over. We must face the reality we see every week when we meet people who are unemployed. They are offered courses, very often by FÁS, which are not appropriate to their needs. They do a course for a short period and are then back at home, without any plan being offered to them and without support, feeling very hopeless. It is the same at national level. There is no plan, no jobs stimulus and we have seen no plan for job creation. Clearly, the budget did not accomplish its task of giving hope to people and providing a stimulus to create jobs.

I wish to invite the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Mary Coughlan, to the House today to discuss the whereabouts of the stimulus plan and the overall macro-plan for job creation. Will she come to the House today and present this information to us? Then we might have a meaningful debate on the actions needed to give the people some hope in the future of this country and in their own future, through job creation.