Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I second the motion. Its main focus is jobs. From the beginning of the economic crisis the Labour Party has emphasised that jobs are the key to recovery. Every person who loses a job is another person on the dole queue, another person who might have a difficulty in repaying his or her mortgage, and many people have that difficulty. Every time a job is created the Exchequer benefits through income tax and more money being spent in shops and small businesses throughout the country. It is that simple.

I, along with my colleagues, was very surprised on the release of the Government's four year plan to note there were no concrete proposals in it to promote job creation and create economic growth. The focus of the plan and the Government has been on cuts and tax increases rather than on getting people back to work. It was an opportunity we had to make a difference to the lives of many people who are out work.

We recognise the need to balance our fiscal position in the next few years and none of us is under the illusion that will be easy. We will be unable to achieve our goals without a concerted and focused effort on getting Ireland working again. Unless the fiscal adjustments outlined in the four year plan are accompanied by a jobs strategy, there is a serious threat that the cure will kill the patient. I do not like to say that but it is a fact which has been written and spoken about on many occasions since the plan was published.

It is unfortunate there will be cuts to the public capital investment programme but what is more unfortunate is that no alternative strategy has been set aside to replace the spending from other sources such as through a strategic investment bank, a bank which would have supported investment in small and medium enterprises and assisted in the funding of infrastructure.

Since the four year plan was released, many members of the business community have made the point that the lack of funds available for capital and innovation will damage Ireland's competitiveness and attractiveness as a location for foreign direct investment. According to a survey of 200 Irish business leaders by Ernst and Young last week, fewer than a third believe that Fianna Fáil's four year plan will restore competitiveness and jobs growth.

A friend of mine who has been in business for many years was refused an overdraft facility of €3,000 by her bank. She has been in business for 27 years. I cannot understand how someone who has had a business for 27 years could be refused such an overdraft facility by her bank. She was told by her bank that it did not have the capital to grant her the facility. It is sad that is the case.

To restore jobs and competitiveness, we need a sustained programme of investment in the right capital, namely, transport, energy, communications and innovation, but the four year plan fails to address this. What is worse, rather than ignoring the fact that we badly need to get people back to work through the types of measures outlined in this motion, the Government decided to break the piggy bank by putting billions of euro from the National Pensions Reserve Fund on the table during its game of poker with the IMF and then it broke the piggy bank now that this money has gone. A large amount of this money is to be cleaned out of the fund and handed over for the benefit of the banks. As Senator Bacik stated, we all know where we are at with the banks.

The Labour Party outlined a number of innovative and practical ideas for how we can stimulate job creation and growth by using only a portion of the money in our National Pensions Reserve Fund. The four year plan does not embrace any of those ideas. The Labour Party's proposal for a strategic investment bank aims to make a major contribution to the immediate task of promoting recovery while also playing a central role in transforming and restoring this country to an export-led growth model. To achieve that goal we need to do more than tax and cut. We need finance for investment in infrastructure for our 21st century knowledge economy and finance for investment in the Irish businesses that will grow up around that infrastructure.

The Labour Party's proposal for a strategic investment bank is set out in our policy paper, Investing in our Future. Our proposal is that a strategic investment bank would be based on the twin models of the German investment bank and on the Irish experience with the ICC and the ACC, both of which are successful models with proven track records.

Despite the many problems we face, we can and should be optimistic about the future of our country because we live in a time of great economic change. At such times, great innovation and a seismic shift in thinking can occur but we should be driven by technological advances which present great opportunities if we seize them. The stale outlook of the Government, however, proves that it is unable to think in the innovative way needed to promote jobs. Successive CSO figures have painted a grim picture of the appalling jobs crisis that confronts us. In south Tipperary alone, more than 2,500 people under the age of 25 are out of work. That is a sad reflection and that level of unemployment is replicated throughout the country, as the Minister of State is aware.

The level of unemployment is neither morally nor economically sustainable because we are losing a generation of young people. The parents of many young people of my son's age and others have gone through the process of rearing them and have given them a college education for export. That is sad. Young people have ideas, the education and the confidence to be the future entrepreneurs and innovators who could pave the way to a prosperous future. We all know families who are facing into the most difficult Christmas period in decades because they have found themselves out of a job. It is heartbreaking for them.

Although the Labour Party's proposal for a strategic investment bank brings with it many opportunities, the main focus of this motion is jobs. The proposal is balanced, fair and necessary if we are to have any hope at the beginning of this plan of saving our country from the economic mire over the next four years.

I note in an amendment to the motion a reference to, among other measures, continuing the car scrappage deal. I acknowledge the car industry has had a bumper year, if Members will pardon the pun, on foot of the benefits of this measure. That is good for the industry as many people are employed in it, but cars are not manufactured in Ireland and therefore there is no economic boost from that measure in terms of it having a job creation aspect. I await with interest the Minister of State's reply to the motion.