Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Professor Pissarides. It is an honour to be in the presence of a Nobel laureate for the first time in my life. I am particularly emotionally moved because the prize in question was awarded for economics. Professor Pissarides is very welcome. I represent Fianna Fáil, which is the major party in opposition, on the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation of this Parliament. On 18 September last, Mr. Robert Strauss made a presentation at the committee on the issue of youth unemployment in Ireland in a European perspective. He held up a chart to show that Ireland has the worst long-term unemployment and youth unemployment of all 27 EU countries. Professor Pissarides may be surprised to hear that.

If I may be blunt, if politicians do not have vision and leadership and do not tread dangerously, they are wasting the time of taxpayers. We received a presentation from a Government body - the expert group on this country's future skills needs - that drew attention to the number of job vacancies in Ireland. Its most recent report, which was based on a survey conducted in 2011, analysed over 100,000 new vacancies across nine broad occupations, specific required skill sets and educational attainments. It showed that despite the recession, job vacancies in the Irish labour market had continued to rise. Approximately 8,500 new vacancies were being advertised each month, despite the scourge of unemployment. Along with another lady, I established a business in 1986, during the last terrible crisis in Ireland. The business in question, Lir Chocolates, currently employs 250 people. We worked for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 16 years to make the company succeed. We worked on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The company would not have survived if we had not given it that level of attention.

We have a serious problem with the public sector. It is not adding anything to the value of the economy. The only jobs that will be created in this economy will be in small and medium-sized indigenous Irish companies and foreign direct investment companies. The people have to realise that those are the only places from which jobs will come. The budget on 5 December next should not dare to touch anything in this country that will impede or constrain the growth of the economy. To be honest, we do not have enough people from a business background to understand that point. I attended a breakfast meeting this morning that was organised by my party's finance spokesman, Deputy Michael McGrath. The business people at the meeting pleaded with us not to allow the Government to do anything in the budget that would stop them from developing their companies. Some of them said they feel they are working merely to pay our staff. As Senator Healy Eames said, we need entrepreneurs.

I wish to highlight a pet issue of mine, which is the Irish people's lack of bilingualism. The ability to speak foreign languages like French, German and Spanish is as important as the acquisition of maths, science and technology skills. We have a serious problem. When young children are in school, they spend hours learning our native language, which we all love and are emotionally attached to. When Irish people finish secondary school, they cannot speak their own language. We have to deal with this issue. We do not have a second language. As Professor Pissarides knows, most young people in every other European country can speak English as well as their own languages. Our serious deficit with regard to bilingualism makes it more difficult for us to do business at the high level of technology that is required now. Business is much more complicated and technical in the new globalised economy. It is no longer a question of developing a personal relationship. One has to be intellectually agile in the areas of science, technology, engineering and maths and be able to communicate in other languages. We have to be more focused on providing these skills. We do not have the skilled people necessary to take up thousands of jobs that are available. I want to know where the leadership will come from to grab this problem and resolve it quickly, as would happen if a multinational company or any other private sector company faced a challenge of this nature.

I will conclude by emphasising that despite what I may have inferred about the public sector, there is absolutely no doubt that there are outstanding public servants in bodies like Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the county and city enterprise boards, to name but a few. We have an increasing problem. The many people who are being let go from the public sector are adding to the high rate of unemployment. They are unemployed now. As a former business person, I find it frustrating that there is no energy or drive to solve the myriad problems.