Michael McCarthy (Labour)

If we immerse ourselves in cutting and reducing public sector spending and a banking policy, we ignore the elephant in the room, that is, the issue of unemployment. The article in question is geographically slanted towards west Cork which, it claims, is a black spot for jobs services. I encourage everyone to read it because it informs us that at present the spread of resources available for training, developing skills and getting people back into the workforce is unevenly balanced. Let us consider the labour activation issue, which did not produce one cent extra for Cork city and county. That was not good enough. We must re-invigorate schemes in place to provide incentives to create jobs in rural areas.