John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

We certainly would not have a deficit. Almost a year ago, the Minister for Finance told us we had turned a corner and we are still turning it. We must be dizzy turning corners at this stage. Perhaps another metaphor could be found by whoever writes speeches.

I acknowledge the performance of Irish exporters and the Minister of State is quite right to place emphasis on it. I also acknowledge the words he spoke on the Government's efforts on the fiscal crisis as opposed to the banking crisis. I agree with him on that but I do not see much action by the Government in this regard. Virtually all of the Government's actions have been on banking and we still have not approached solving that problem, whether we like it or not. I have commended in this House certain actions taken by the Minister for Finance on reducing public expenditure, which had to happen. I do not agree with the manner in which some of it was introduced but reductions had to be made. However, there does not seem to be any attempt or concerted effort by the Government to realise the way we will get ourselves out of this situation is by creating more jobs.

I acknowledge that there are certain areas where we are doing quite well. I do not have the statistics to which the Minister of State referred regarding how well we are doing in Asia. It is to be highly commended but if we are doing well in Asia we could do equally well in other areas. That during these difficult circumstances and times, we can do so well in Asian markets begs the question as to why we are not doing better in some of the other markets. It may be an area on which there can be a focus. It is interesting that the Minister of State mentioned that we are exporting more in terms of value to China than we are importing. It is a very important statistic but we should aim to do that in other places. We should try to replicate whatever has happened in the Asian office of Enterprise Ireland or whatever different agencies are involved in ensuring that we have such success in that area.

The Government has taken a few measures recently. A year after the Fine Gael proposal, it adopted the idea of a PRSI break for employers taking on unemployed people, which is good. We had a long discussion today at the meeting of the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment on competitiveness. There are several specific areas still creating difficulties for our economy.

On the Order of Business the issue of difficulties with regard to the leaving certificate and junior certificate examinations was raised. There are still difficulties in terms of attracting students to mathematics and science subjects. If we are serious about innovation, research and development that is an area which has to be significantly addressed. Education is key to improving our unemployment figures.

There are also difficulties with regard to languages. The Minister of State spoke about the Asian success. There has obviously been a concerted effort with regard to overcoming language difficulties but we are not attracting enough young people to study foreign languages. It is an issue I often think about. I studied German in school. It is an important language. We have substantial commercial relations with Germany but we need to extend and expand the range of languages which are on offer to people in education. Germany is a relatively small market in the overall global context.

I will pick up a on couple of points made by the Minister. I mentioned success in Asia and how we should try to use whatever successes we have had in that area and replicate them in other regions throughout the world. I acknowledged at the time of the budget that the Minister's changes to the research and development tax credit were to be welcomed, a decision with which I agree. I am a little puzzled by the comments of the Minister of State on Enterprise Ireland's objective over the next five years to create 40,000 jobs. He said it had done such a good job it created 700 jobs in the past six months. That is nowhere near creating 40,000 jobs in the next five years.