Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State. In the short term the fiscal and banking issues must be resolved, but our recovery will be all about the creation of jobs. It is my party's view that the focus was not put on job creation until quite recently by the Government. As my party's motion states, every unemployed person costs the State about €20,000 between social welfare payments and lost income taxes and contributions. This must be factored in in considering the cost of all decisions made.

It is proposed to make vicious cuts in social welfare payments in the four year plan, but the best way to save money on the social welfare bill is to get people back to work. It would also result in the growth required. However, there is nothing of significance in the four year plan to address this problem.

There are many shovel-ready capital projects to be undertaken. Schools need to be built, while insulation work needs to be carried out. In other words, there are actions that could be taken straightaway to get unemployed construction workers back to work. The Minister of State referred to plans in terms of retrofits, etc. We must do this work quickly. It must be accelerated. However, we must also wean the economy off its dependence on construction. In the medium term we must return to growth and expand our export base. There is positive development in that regard, which must be acknowledged.

In an increasingly global economy we must look strategically at what we do well in Ireland and try to excel at them. I want to talk about three areas in particular. Agriculture and food production are obvious ones. Rather than exporting commodities, as we do to the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, we must add value and export to more sophisticated markets. Indigenous companies must be positioned to export to emerging markets such as Brazil, India and China. Enterprise Ireland is doing good work in this regard, but it must do more, do better, be properly resourced and pointed in the right direction. We need to be more ambitious for it. Its brief is to support companies in the traded services sector or exporting manufacturing companies only. County enterprise boards could support companies with up to ten employees only. If these smaller companies are to be successful and grow and have more than ten employees, where can they go for support? Enterprise Ireland can do nothing for them, and this must change. That serious gap is acknowledged everywhere we go when people talk about these issues which can be addressed if there was the will to do so. County enterprise boards have had their budgets cut by in the region of 30% this year. How can this be right at a time when we should be doing everything possible to get people back to work?

Another sector that is of importance to us and in which we could excel is tourism. Its importance has been underlined by the United Nations World Tourism Organization in its Tourism and Economic Stimulus - Initial Assessment of 2009 which urged all governments "to put Tourism at the core of their stimulus packages because the jobs and trade flows from a strong tourism sector, as well as business and consumer confidence in travel, can play a big part in recovery". There are many fine proposals contained in Deputy Upton's recent tourism document entitled, Extending the Welcome, but is the Minister of State aware that we make it so difficult for tourists to come here from India, China and elsewhere? For several months I have been working on a case to try to get a Chinese national here on holiday to visit an Irish friend who is well capable of supporting her and can guarantee this. The Minister of State would not believe the obstacles placed in front of her and her Irish friend. We should be welcoming the tourist dollar, not rejecting it.

A third area in which we should have a competitive advantage is green energy. There is tremendous potential to develop offshore wind farms around the coastline. Ireland has an enormous untapped indigenous power source in offshore wind energy. The National Offshore Wind Association of Ireland claims such projects present an opportunity to Ireland to become the green power centre of Europe and an international centre for the development of new offshore wind technologies. To harness this potential, there is a need for the Government to put in place a framework which would recognise the long-term benefits of this resource. The Labour Party, in its policy document, The Energy Revolution, brings forward plans for a national energy efficiency retrofit programme to create at least 30,000 direct construction jobs. It is hard to understand the absence of a major insulation programme for schools, hospitals, Garda stations and public buildings, even though there are thousands of construction workers with the necessary skills available.

These are some of the things Ireland can do well and it is this approach, identifying areas in which we can be the best in the world, which will reap rewards. I am not saying none of this is happening but more must be done. It is a national imperative. More proactive strategies are needed. The unemployment rate is running at approximately 13.7% and the OECD projects unemployment in Ireland will still be at 13% by the end of 2011. In 2008, 25% of the total number of unemployed were long-term unemployed; the number now stands at 43%. There is a crisis emerging which needs an appropriate and urgent response. Labour market activation measures are needed more than ever. While I accept large fiscal deficits are making this more difficult to achieve, the jobs crisis is far from being resolved, even though Government spokespersons have been pointing to the small reduction in the number on the live register as evidence to the contrary. Those who have left the live register are now in foreign countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States and more are leaving by the day. Training and placement opportunities are needed and must be at the top of our political agenda. The crisis in FÁS is not helping and the reorganisation is taking its toll. We need a functioning organisation at this time to get the unemployed back to work quickly before there is structural long-term unemployment, before people lose hope and there is dependency on welfare payments.

With the public finances in such a disastrous state, we must adopt a value for money approach to all of these matters. There must be a proper analysis of what works and what has not worked and we must learn from best international practice. We must also learn from those who have participated in some of the current programmes. Let us be prepared to ask them about their experiences and act on the results of these surveys. We must be prepared to scrap some of the low level training programmes which may be of little benefit in favour of more challenging programmes linked with training opportunities in more diverse sectors. It is no longer appropriate to have a plethora of construction-related courses, with the exception of those which have a green energy focus. Why not introduce training courses which would appeal to those seeking careers in the media, including newspaper journalism, public relations, marketing, sports, including greenkeeping, etc., which are not readily available? There is an excessive emphasis on computer programmes in the FÁS courses available.

Unemployment subsidies must be expanded and targeted at new recruits, the long-term unemployed and other vulnerable groups. Job search assistance and monitoring is essential. Processes must be put in place that ensure a person becoming unemployed for the first time comes in contact with a case officer within at most two weeks, and thereafter has planned continual appointments and follow-up. It is not good enough merely to tick the boxes on this most important aspect of getting people back to work quickly.

We must also focus on our graduates, 30% of whom are unemployed according to a recent UCD survey. Recently, the Union of Students in Ireland attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Innovation and gave us its thoughts and a proposal for a meaningful national internship scheme. Students would work for their dole while getting valuable work experience and would also bring their skills to the enterprise, which is very important. This should be done immediately. Let us give our graduates a reason to stay rather than a reason to emigrate. At least give them something to think about before they decide to emigrate.

We have a structural problem with welfare in this country. I am not talking about the so-called unemployment traps referred to by the Minister of State which are constantly peddled about unemployment benefits being too high and thus preventing unemployed people from taking up low-paid jobs. The same traps did not prevent the unemployment rate from going to 4% during the boom, so I do not accept the arguments.