Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I thought about what I would say on the issue of job creation and thought I would give a practical example because everybody has given an overview of the situation and mentioned the almost 450,000 people who are out of work, of whom more than 100,000 are under 25 years of age. This time last year people came to my office who were very stressed as a result of losing their jobs, in particular fathers in their mid-40s with two children in college and a third in a grind school. One man said he had an idea to set up a cycling tourism business which I said was great. He asked where he would receive help. When I mentioned the enterprise board, he said he needed a job to repay his mortgage because he was worried he would lose his house. I told him I did not provide jobs and asked him to discuss his idea for a cycling tourism business. That experience stayed with me.

This time last year, before National Women's Day, which is next Monday, three other colleagues and I had a conversation, from which was born the Job Creation Oranmore Initiative. We were careful to describe it as an initiative as our aim was to help people to get started in business and provide hope. It is going from strength to strength. We set up a panel of experts which is available free of charge and which includes a former banker with more than 40 years' experience, a marketing person, an IT person, a solicitor and a number of business coaches. We worked out the initiative and coached a number of people who had come to me to develop their skills. They start with me; I work on their needs and refer them to the expert panel which can give them help. We are like a friendly "Dragon's Den". We meet every two or three weeks and, on average, have four or five clients every time we meet. Last October we had a job creation open day and were fortunate to have George Lee attend. There were approximately 300 people present. The initiative has since gone from strength to strength. Each week in my constituency office I hold a jobs clinic and the panel meets regularly. Last night I presented the idea to Athlone Chamber of Commerce because it was gaining credence and popularity. We developed the initiative because no solutions were being offered by the Government. Therefore, we decided to help ourselves. When somebody comes to us, we can offer him or her expertise which, if he or she was to get started in business, would cost him or her €2,500 to €3,000. It is all available free of charge. We do not say we will be there for ever. Obviously, people must help themselves as well. However, I shall list some of the businesses we have helped to date. They include a fashion business, a young company working in environmental planning, a person who wants to get started in water harvesting, a person in the interior decor business——