Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I understand he will respond to me on behalf of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton. An Irish executive from PayPal Ireland publicly announced last week that her company will have to import workers to fill approximately 500 of the 1,000 new jobs it announced earlier this year. She bemoaned the fact that PayPal Ireland has been unable to recruit locally-based workers as a result of the lack of linguistic skills in this country. I emphasise that I welcomed the job announcement at the time because it was wonderful news for Dundalk and the rest of the north east. I expressed the hope that it would give unemployed people a real opportunity of finding meaningful and sustainable long-term employment.

I was disappointed that the chief executive of IDA Ireland, Mr. Barry O'Leary, more or less seemed to dismiss any concerns arising from the announcement that was made by the PayPal executive. It was reported that he said it did not really matter if 500 jobs were filled by people from overseas because a further 500 jobs would be filled by people from Ireland and the local economy would benefit from the total of 1,000 jobs. However, at a time when 430,000 people in this country are on the live register - and 200,000 hard-core unemployed people have been out of work for a year or more - I think it is a very real problem. I am not expecting the world to change as a result of the Adjournment matter I am raising, but I would like to get some answers. Is there joined-up thinking between the Departments of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, and Education and Skills? Are there any plans to address the lack of linguistic skills among the unemployed who are actively seeking jobs?

A number of articulate former employees of the TalkTalk facility in Waterford were interviewed on "Morning Ireland" earlier today. One of them spoke of taking a new career direction, which I hope will be successful, while the second indicated he had written to between 15 and 20 companies seeking work since losing his job in TalkTalk, a call centre where he had worked for eight years. PayPal is essentially a banking operation for those who wish to use the company's system as a method of payment for online purchases. There is not a great difference between the jobs in these companies because in both cases employees deal with members of the public. Are support services in place to encourage the second gentleman who spoke on this morning's programme to learn German, French, Italian or another foreign language? Are support services available to channel those who are actively seeking employment in the direction of employment opportunities offered by companies such as PayPal? It appears from the public pronouncements of the chief executive of the IDA, Mr. Barry O'Leary, that PayPal's problem with the Irish workforce is almost exclusively related to its lack of linguistic skills as opposed to any lack of expertise. Mr. O'Leary also stated the company was actively advertising the vacancies across the world, particularly among the Irish abroad.

Is our network of embassies, for example, in Australia, the United States and some parts of Europe where Irish people have settled, especially Germany and the Low Countries where they will have linguistic skills, being used to actively encourage Irish people to return home to work in companies such as PayPal? I presume Irish people abroad would much prefer to work at home. Does the Government have a specific plan to address this problem, which is not an isolated one but the tip of an iceberg? I am concerned that the good work being done by the IDA and Government initiatives to create more opportunities for the unemployed could be lost in the wind through a lack of joined up thinking in efforts to address the lack of linguistic skills. Sadly, this is culturally embedded in society, primarily because we are an island nation that lies in close proximity to the United Kingdom and English is the international language.