Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I agree with Senators Leyden and MacSharry that we can work our way out of the difficult place in which we find ourselves. In doing so, however, we must have more than the facile public relations stunts carried out by Government day after day which lack any type of innovative thought or resources to tackle the biggest issue facing the country, namely, the jobs crisis.

Some months ago the Government announced a revised national development plan, essentially the reheating of an older development plan, which was to create 270,000 jobs. Yesterday we had another reheated plan which promises to generate 300,000 jobs. That is 570,000 jobs over the next five years or 2,000 new jobs a week from now on. If the Government reheating old tired ideas is the only inspiration on offer to the 120,000 young people who have left our shores in the past two years, then I truly despair.

The biggest fallacy in yesterday's statement was the Government's claim that it is going to create jobs. Governments do not create jobs, business people do. In doing so they must be allowed and encouraged by Government. Rather than doing exactly that, our Government over the past three or four years has chosen to put brick walls in front of every business in this country. The head of IDA Ireland, charged with generating new business, tells us that high energy costs act as a barrier to growth. Businesses in Northern Ireland pay 14% less than we do for electricity. We have the fifth highest electricity prices out of 31 European countries and the Government is now thinking of increasing those charges again. If one is so unfortunate as to have one's electricity disconnected, the Government makes money by charging VAT on both the disconnection and the reconnection fees.

Despite several assurances that our banking system is finally fixed, nothing could be further from the truth, and it has taken the ECB to tell us that honest fact. Over the summer, how many business people have we met with innovative ideas that could generate jobs in a real economy if they only had support from the banking system? The truth is they do not have that support.

Businesses are being strangled by a hopelessly outdated commercial rating system. The rates being charged to businesses in 2010 bear no relationship to their earning capacities. A rates revaluation programme that began in 2001 - almost ten years ago - to reassess rates in the 88 rating areas has only managed to assess three areas in that time. In those three an average reduction of 30% in the commercial rate was achieved.