Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ná habair é. I met a real entrepreneur when Senator Mary Ann O'Brien came over to tell me about that.

I welcome the Minister to the House. The 61,000 figure is excellent news which shows how the economy has been restoring its competitiveness in the past three or four years. The increase in full-time employment is 3.9%, comprised of an increase in the private sector of 4.5% and a public sector reduction of 1.5%. Unemployment is down by 41,000. It was interesting to read Colm McCarthy's article on Sunday to the effect that the sources of the growth between 2011 and 2013 were 12.8% in accommodation and hospitality while professional, scientific and technical employment was up by 19.7%. We still have a problem. The briefing document which the Oireachtas service helpfully prepared for us shows that up to 2013, the cumulative decline in youth employment was almost 60%. This represents a drop from 357,000 employed youth in summer 2007 to 148,000 at the beginning of 2013. They do not see that revising, unfortunately.

As Senator Lorraine Higgins has just been saying, we must tackle the bank problem. We have an economy trying to operate without banks or with impaired banks. It has taken far too long. The crisis is now going on for six years. Perhaps, we should look at inducements for different types of banks to enter the market. The Minister for Finance was with us last night in this series and he might be thinking along those lines. Property-based banks like we have had, which are seriously impaired, cannot fuel the growth the Minister seeks and that we all support. I say the same about the accountancy firms who gave us accounts in respect of those banks, which were supposed to be true and accurate. We ended up having to invest €64 billion of public money in them. Not to have a reputation for reliable accountants is a serious obstacle to people like the Minister when they are trying to develop this country. I remain to be convinced that the construction industry would not do the same all over again, unfortunately.

I am not so sure the sheltered section of the economy, which the Minister discusses in Action Plan for Jobs, has changed its colours either. It is still wedded to restrictive practices. I was thinking of the Minister's career in economics as he went from UCD to Oxford to the ESRI. I would hope Professor Brendan Walsh, who is in charge of financial regulation, will be able to produce a system of accounting that does verify what is happening. Professor Bent Flyvbjerg at Oxford has set out his fears about large projects such as the Irish public capital programme which we used to boast was twice as large as any other one in the EU. That means bigger cost overruns. Professor Bent Flyvbjerg work shows that large projects lead to large cost overruns. There seemed to be no liability on people. In fact, they were rewarded. The larger the cost overrun, the larger the fees for the people who engaged in those projects. Siren calls that we need to have stimulus packages based on the public capital programme carry a warning light. The export-led growth the Minister has been pursuing is much more reliable.

On the sheltered sectors, Paul Gorecki of the ESRI has been critical of some of the recent policies. The unpicking by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport of the decision to deregulate the taxi business by placing obstacles in front of new entrants has probably cost approximately 5,000 jobs. Some, admittedly, were lost during the recession. We always listen to the incumbents who do not like new entrants. New entrants are the people who keep incumbents efficient and honest in any sector. The Competition Authority is also critical of the proposal to put only 10% of bus routes to competitive tender in 2016. They have been preventing competition in that sector since 1932. It has taken 84 years to get competition for 10% of bus routes. At that rate of progress, it will be 840 years before one gets a competitive bus business.

Members on all sides of the House supported the measure in the early days of the troika to allow new doctors to compete for the General Medical Service. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Alex White, spoke about it subsequently. I do not think there have even been 100. The local General Medical Service doctor remains a local monopolist. The legislative provisions were very good. In determining an application, the HSE is not to consider the viability of the applicant or the effect on the viability of anyone else in the business either. The medical profession, which is heavily criticised in the troika reports for high costs, seems to have succeeded again in preventing a measure which all sides of the House wanted to see introduced to improve our competitiveness.

I agree with much of the criticism of the document that was made on George Lee's programme by Sheila Killian of the University of Limerick and Dr. Moira Creedon of the IMI. It tends to lack numbers, fails to evaluate policies and never seems to want to shut down any policy. It is agency intensive. There are 102 quangos mentioned. Action 109 is to review the regulatory framework for airport charges. What happened to the regulatory framework for airport charges? The regulator, Cathal Guiomard, did not recommend an increase. The previous Government imposed a 41% increase. I hope we are not blaming the regulator. The practice by which Ministers can overrule regulators is what caused the increase.

I mentioned meeting Senator Mary Ann O'Brien as an entrepreneur and I also met Mr. Michael O'Leary of Ryanair recently. He said there will be 1 million extra passengers because the Government accepted his point that the travel tax was a barrier to people visiting this island.

The Minister is doing a lot of worthwhile and praiseworthy things but we still need to look at how many things went wrong in 2008 and how we can prevent a recurrence. I commend the Minister on commissioning the Competition Authority's report on port charges. It said that some of the leases in Dublin Port are far too long and effectively prevent competition. As we export 85% of our goods by sea, competition within ports is important.

The movement of Forfás into the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is also crucial because we need more ideas in this area, given its vital national importance.

Elementary economic rules were broken in setting up Irish Water. We tried to get amendments accepted in the House in order that Irish Water would be subject to the Competition Authority and proper capital investment appraisals with a local democracy element would be involved. The Seanad will undoubtedly assist the Minister in all these endeavours, but some old practices are still around in some parts of Government Buildings. I wish the Minister every success in trying to counteract those because we do not want to make the same mistakes again.

The figure of 61,000 additional jobs is most impressive and I congratulate everyone concerned with it. We have so much more to do, however, and practices that predate 2008 will not help. Perhaps one of the problems is the ban on recruitment because the public servants who were there when the economy crashed have had an extra six years. If new economists were being recruited and coming in, they might create better ideas for what the Minister called disruptive innovation. We need to have disruptive innovation in policy discussions. I thank the Minister for attending the House.