Jimmy Harte (Labour)

I welcome the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to the House. It is a coincidence that Donegal is currently hosting its enterprise and business week, an annual event organised by the Donegal County Enterprise Board. Donegal's local economy is typical of counties outside Dublin with a mix of tourism, agriculture and technology companies, all of which have the potential to be improved.

The agenda for Donegal's enterprise week refers to media and marketing, food, agriculture, tourism and developing the county's job strategy. Since coming into office, the Minister, along with the Minister for Social Protection, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Education and Skills, has given the jobs initiative and forum his full attention. However, unless counties such as Donegal get a stimulus package and job creation up running again, there will be many closures of retail businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. I have been involved in a small business over 25 years and I see the changes to the jobs profile in Letterkenny and Donegal. We must get the domestic market up and running again through stimulus packages.

The Government has already delivered Pathways to Work and other social supports to get people off the unemployment queues. There is nothing more frustrating for any community, such as Letterkenny, to see a dole queue in which many had decent jobs in the past. Their next choices will be either emigration or retraining. It is important to encourage people in such circumstances to get back into retraining. Unless we achieve this soon, the flood of emigration will continue.

I had heard of Saskatchewan before, knowing it only as a mid-west Canadian province consisting of large tracts of land and cowboys. I never thought it would come to Ireland's rescue by offering us employment. It is surprising that a province such as Saskatchewan can provide employment. This country is recognised as having skills from medical to pharmaceutical to academic to the extent that we can surpass even countries such as Canada and its province of Saskatchewan. Portugal and Greece do not have our profile or skills. They did not invest money in the education or skills system as we did.