David Norris (Independent)

The Senator is most gracious and I thank him very much. I listened with great interest to his passionate contribution.

I refer the Minister of State to what I believe is a contradiction in her speech. She says on the first page she is aware of the difficult times, that employers are wary of taking on new staff and that many have been forced to let staff go over the past few years. There is a suggestion there they will take them back or re-employ them but on the next page she states the scheme is only available in relation to full-time jobs that are wholly new and additional. This suggests very clearly that they cannot re-hire in the same area and in the same job and they certainly cannot re-hire the same people. I ask the Minister of State to provide an explanation.

This is a very valuable motion and I find I can agree with both sides. It seems the Government is saying the PRSI incentive scheme is a very good thing and Fine Gael is agreeing and saying it was actually its idea and that the Government has stolen its clothes. In that case, I wholeheartedly support this because it is shocking to think that 450,000 people are unemployed. This is a vast figure and it is a reproach to all of us and it is a particular reproach to people who have not chosen to speak in this debate, which I find astonishing.

I remember the bad times. I remember the last recession and we are still 800,000 jobs ahead of where we were then, partly because the population has increased. What will happen small businesses and people who are self-employed? They do not seem to be covered in this scheme. I refer to very small businesses with one person. Many of these have crashed all over the country. These people have invested in a business and have worked extremely hard.

I note there are some good indicators. I am delighted to hear that, technically, the recession is over. We should be trumpeting this. However, there is a caveat and that caveat is this refers to gross domestic product and not gross national product, or whatever it is. The difference is that in one, the multinational companies are included and they frequently repatriate a great amount of their profits. We have to be careful that we are compensating in our calculations for this leakage.

We should also be aware that there are some other good news stories in which this House has played a significant role. We had a debate on bio-fuels in which Senator Coffey took a very important part and so did Senator Phelan, Senator O'Reilly and Senator Cummins. As a result of that debate, there has been the development of a very significant industry in the Waterford region, which I know is very close to the Senator Coffey's heart. I learned yesterday that this company, which without the assistance of Seanad Éireann would possibly have had to go out of business, has been awarded a major award in recognition of its work in the area of green industry. Just last week I drew the attention of the House to the fact that a young man was outside the gate getting publicity for a company in County Clare where he has produced a biodegradable plastic bottle. This is potentially of huge significance because plastic bottles are used all over the world and virtually no one else, to my knowledge, has cracked the nut of making them biodegradable. We should be proud of this achievement. There is lots of energy, lots of initiative and lots of talented, young, educated people and we need as much support as possible. I am not normally a fence-sitter. It will be some wrench of my conscience to decide on which point in this debate I will come down but having been graciously granted time by Senator Coffey, I feel I shall have to vote with Fine Gael on this motion-----