Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I thank the Minister of State for her interesting views. I always have a difficulty with Private Members' debates. The Government usually tables a motion, as it did today, stating "Seanad Éireann welcomes the Government's decision..." and the Opposition, in turn, tables an amendment, stating "To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following "condemns the Government's decision...". However, both sides are anxious to succeed in creating jobs. The hearts of Senators Mooney and Dearey and Opposition Senators are in the right place but the question is whether they will succeed.

I am slightly worried about the term "job creation" coming from the Government because the Government is not engaged in job creation. The Minister of State will have heard me say this previously. When I met the Labor Secretary of the previous US Government, Elaine Chao, she said, "My job is to create the environment so that private enterprise can create the jobs". Approximately 30 years ago I was chairman of a hospital as a job creation programme was put in place. We received letters every month asking how many jobs we had created and how many new nurses and porters we had taken on. That is what caused problems in the 1980s. Jobs were created that were not viable and that is what got us into difficulty back then.

We created costs which were far too high and made the State uneconomical. We created jobs that were not needed.

There are several things we can do which can establish the conditions that make it easier for businesses to employ people in viable jobs. We should do our utmost to avoid putting unnecessary burdens on businesses in terms of red tape. It stifles business in general and entrepreneurship in particular. Perhaps we could introduce a sustainable employment test to block new regulations that will cost jobs. We talk a great deal about this but doing it is the difficult issue because every time something goes wrong people call for more regulation. More regulation means stifling the entrepreneurship we must encourage.

I visited Panama some years ago. The people there told me that in their efforts to encourage job creation and to create new enterprises they set the target of having the least red tape for creating new companies. I asked them what they managed to achieve. They said they looked at countries throughout the world, including Singapore and Hong Kong, and managed to beat them all because a new company can be created with the necessary paperwork in seven hours. Recently, however, all the concerns about deregulation and regulation are such that we are probably going in the opposite direction.

All new proposals should be subjected to rigorous audit. We should also give businesses a chance to highlight where regulation has been poorly designed and to suggest ways to improve it. We must address reductions in the cost of utilities and services for small and medium enterprises. In that regard, recently there was a Government initiative to get rid of legislation that was more than 100 years old. What about legislation that has been passed in more recent times? Perhaps we need a system to reconsider all old legislation that is hindering business and job creation. Interestingly, a few days ago we discussed the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act. Its provisions must come before the Houses every year to be renewed. That is understandable, and when the Minister was in the House discussing it we talked about whether this should be considered with regard to other legislation we have passed. Perhaps all legislation should have to be renewed every ten years. It might mean we will find that some of the legislation passed ten or 20 years ago is out of date and imposing a burden on job creation by private enterprise.

It is interesting to note that in Spain, workers on full contracts are entitled to severance pay of as much as 45 days pay per year worked, one of the highest levels in Europe. As part of the government's employment reforms, it is planned to reduce this to 33 days for some contracts. The thinking is that if the Spanish Government makes it cheaper for businesses to let employees go, employers will realise that it is cheaper to hire workers, since a worker's cost includes the price of his dismissal. In other words, if one takes on a worker, one must include in one's calculations that one must pay him 45 days per year worked if one lets him go. Reducing that might appear to be the wrong way to go but I understand what it means. It might seem harsh and Machiavellian to some, but we must realise there is no easy way to make businesses start taking people on again. We can only set the conditions that might encourage them to do so, for instance, the cost of hiring employees and letting them go.

Although it is most unpopular, somebody must mention the elephant in the room, the minimum wage. Ireland has the second highest minimum wage in Europe and while we want to be competitive, some jobs do not exist at that minimum wage. I have talked to businesses that want to create jobs and take on people but they simply cannot at the current rate. If somebody does not want to work at that minimum rate, they do not have to do so, but if we have a minimum wage that must be paid at a particular rate, and the job does not exist at that rate, it is up to the State to do something about it.

I mentioned some time ago in the House that the state of Colorado in the US had reduced its minimum wage. It did this because the wage was linked to inflation; therefore, when deflation occurred, as it has been occurring here, it automatically reduced. That does not apply here. While there are a number of jobs that could exist, they do not exist due to our minimum wage rate. Learning from the mistakes of the boom, can we not in future link the minimum wage to deflation as well as inflation? It might appear wrong to think or say this but there are jobs that do not exist at the minimum wage rate, and our rate is the second highest in Europe. A new survey of more than 500 accountants, from the Institute of Certified Public Accountants, showed that 60% of respondents believe the current minimum wage of €8.65 per hour is making Irish business uncompetitive. It is interesting to note that half of the respondents also said that they did not expect to employ more people in their company even if the minimum wage level was reduced.

We must do our utmost to address high levels of long-term unemployment. Over time, people get discouraged and may not seek jobs. Ex-workers gradually lose their skills and their motivation and it is quite likely that they may never work again. Older and less-skilled dislocated workers, who are most likely to have difficulties landing comparable, or any, jobs should be identified early and receive additional services. In this respect, I welcome the new Government scheme to give employers PRSI exemptions for taking on new workers who have been unemployed for six months or more. I hope the measures included in the scheme will cut costs for business and will encourage businesses to take on the people they need. The Minister explained the scheme very well tonight. If it can create anywhere near the figure of 10,000 new jobs, it will be a great success.

I hope the overall conditions in the global economy for Irish businesses will help job creation. The fall in the value of the euro, for example, is very encouraging for Irish exports because companies here benefit more than those in other eurozone nations from the currency's weakness against the dollar and sterling. Also, some people believe that a strong sterling will boost Irish, so-called indigenous exports. Ireland will gain, too, from the fact that it has a higher percentage of its exports in services than any other western economy.

We must recognise that if we are to create jobs, most will come from the State removing barriers to enable entrepreneurs to start businesses and to create those jobs. I hope the Government will take on board some of the ideas put forward today from both sides of the House and play its part, however small, in creating the conditions for business to employ people.

I read an interesting book recently entitled Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. The figures are just fascinating. The country has the highest number of start-up companies in the world. There are 3,850 start-ups, one for every 1,844 Israelis. That is huge compared to other countries. A country of 7.1 million people attracted as much venture capital as the United Kingdom, with 61 million people, or the 145 million people in Germany and France combined. The book is interesting because it asks what it is about Israel that got entrepreneurs starting businesses. There is no single easy answer but something, be it the psyche of the Israeli people or whatever else, made Israelis believe in start-up companies that will create viable businesses. One can read about some of the innovation businesses.

I hope that what will emerge from the recent Your Country, Your Call competition initiated by Dr. Martin McAleese will be similar innovative ideas to help Ireland and to create new viable start-ups and entrepreneurial jobs that will solve our huge unemployment problem. However, consider what has happened over the years. We still have a large number of people working, more than were working 20 years ago. There are 800,000 more people working now than in 1990. We did succeed. Let us not dampen our enthusiasm by saying that because we got it right for 15 years and got it wrong for the past four or five years, we should throw everything away. We can achieve. We can set out to achieve what we need but we must do so with a belief in ourselves. If we can believe in ourselves, we can be as good as those countries that have managed to do it elsewhere. We can do it not by paying lower or cheap wages but by investing in the enterprises we have.

It was interesting to hear Senator Buttimer talk about the education system. Senator Buttimer and I were involved in the leaving certificate applied some years ago. The leaving certificate applied does not just measure people's academic ability but what I call their other intelligences. They may be called skills, talents or whatever but I prefer the word "intelligences" because those intelligences help make sure the people who might otherwise have been left at the back of the class and who may be left without jobs are able to show what they can do.

Sir Richard Branson is one example of those who would have been regarded as a failure at school. Sir Bob Geldof is another I can think of others who would have been regarded as a failure at school. These were people who did not pass the academic examinations but when they were let loose and they discovered their talents, skills, abilities and intelligence in a different way, we all saw what they were able to do. The danger is that we are likely to take our eye off the ball by not encouraging the leaving certificate applied.

One of the areas in which leaving certificate applied students always worked very well is the hospitality business but they are no longer given the CAO points they now need, which they did not need previously. It is in the Government's hands to make sure that those who decide not to do an academic leaving certificate but the leaving certificate applied can go on to third level education. It might not be university level but the sort of education that will give them the chance to develop further.

I was impressed by the Minister's words earlier but also by the words of the Opposition speakers. We must all put our heads together to determine what we can do to ensure this becomes the country where we have start-up operations, and that those start-up operations create jobs.