Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I also welcome the Minister of State to the House. His background and expertise in business has been mentioned and I am sure he will bring his experience to his position. It is welcome that more and more people with a business background are becoming actively involved in public life and being elected to Dáil Éireann. We had a brief discussion on the Order of Business this morning on the electoral system. If we look at the background of most Members of the Dáil and Seanad over the past 50 years, business people have been at the lower end of the percentage scale. That is maybe one of the reasons certain political and economic decisions were taken in the Oireachtas; there was not sufficient business experience or understanding of the impact of regulation on business and job creation. I hope the arrival in Government of people like the Minister will help redress the balance because more business people are needed in politics, with more business thinking and more support for enterprise.

Our country is an economic wasteland. That did not happen overnight but there is no point going on and on about the faults of the previous Government, it is up to this Government to tackle the problem and there must be new thinking brought to bear. If we believe we will solve our problems by simply repeating the politics and thinking of the past 20 years, we will fail. Dynamic and radical new thinking is required.

I am glad, therefore, that the Minister of State works alongside the Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation because any student of Irish politics over the past 20 years who reads the records of the debates in the Dáil would recognise that Deputy Richard Bruton is second to none when it comes to the idea of reform, be it in politics or business. Such reform is now urgently required. There was a great deal of debate recently when the Minister brought the terms of the programme for Government into the public arena and his thinking on the employment regulations orders and wages agreements has been the cause of debate. We would all prefer if this proposal was not required but we must live in the real world, not in cloud cuckoo land, recognising that 450,000 are out of work and that it is now virtually impossible for employers to create jobs but to keep those they have already provided. We must put maintenance of existing jobs and creation of new jobs at the top of our list, taking whatever steps, no matter how difficult, to ensure that happens. We cannot afford to see the 450,000 become 500,000.

More than 14% of the workforce is now idle. This is a huge economic drain on the State and is unsustainable. We talk about the banking crisis and the national debt but we cannot sustain 450,000 being out of work. We have arrived at a situation where there are no more sacred cows, where every decision must be questioned and every option must be debated. We are now spending in excess of €20 billion per year on social welfare. A significant proportion of that goes on old age pensions and disability services but a huge amount is paid on a weekly basis, and rightly so, to those who are unemployed. We must look at this budget of billions of euro and ask how some of it could be used to assist in job creation. Perhaps people could work for five or ten hours per week, changing the culture of their lives and giving them an incentive to go back to work. There is a fine balance we must strike to give people an incentive to go back to work. It is wrong that for many being out of work is as financially secure as being at work and the Minister of State and his Government colleagues must address that.

I support the remarks of my colleagues on the tourism industry. These are not dramatic new ideas but tourism can genuinely create jobs in the short-term. We have had the recent visits of Queen Elizabeth and President Obama and Ireland's international reputation has been enhanced by those visits. We must build on that.

I agree with the remarks made this morning on the regional airports. I hope I do not fall out politically with my friend and colleague, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, but we must look at airports with a medium and long-term focus. We must give all possible assistance to the airports in Galway, Sligo and Waterford. These airports generate and keep jobs and raise a region's profile. We must do all that is possible to keep these airports open.