Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

As we struggle on a daily basis to come to terms with the present banking and economic crisis, we see the real casualties, to whom Senator O'Reilly referred. They are the people who cannot pay day-to-day bills such as electricity and fuel bills while millions of euro are being spent on special advisors to the Government, on banking and on legal mechanisms - on advice that seems to be failing.

I want to take up the offer of Senators Leyden and Carroll to have a debate on jobs and employment. In the past two years, unemployment in the south east, where I come from, has climbed from 6% to 18.1%, with very high profile job losses such as at Waterford Crystal, TEVA and ABB Transformers. However, these are only the headline job losses. Small and medium enterprises are haemorrhaging jobs on a daily basis, an issue which needs to be tackled urgently.

The Government talks about creating 150,000 jobs. It is high on PR spin but there is very little on specifics. This is the ideal Chamber to debate that issue. A good place to start is in regard to refocusing on manufacturing and competitiveness. Let us not give up on manufacturing because that is what is keeping our country going at present, namely, the products which our small businesses are manufacturing in small factories throughout the country and exporting to Europe and the wider world.

We took our eye off the ball in the past 15 years under the stewardship of this Government; while it was propagating the property bubble, it forgot about manufacturing. We need more blue collar jobs. Yes, it is nice to have the smart economy and that high profile jobs would be created but we need decent, ordinary jobs for day-to-day living. I call on the Leader for that debate on jobs and particularly on manufacturing.