Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join in welcoming the Minister and compliment him on driving Action Plan for Jobs. It builds upon the action plan that was put in place in 2012, following the change of government, to tackle the massive unemployment crisis when we were shedding 1,600 jobs per week. What marks this out from other plans is that is has a whole-of-Government approach and every Department is charged with playing its part in job creation. As Senator Barrett said, the plan is working in that 61,000 extra jobs have been created in the past year. The unemployment level has declined every month for the past 19 months. Last month, we had an unemployment rate of 12.3% compared with 15.1% in February 2012.

I welcome the ambitious target in the plan that by the end of this year we will be below the eurozone average for unemployment. By 2016, we will be below 10% and we aim to achieve full employment by 2020. It is courageous of the Government to aim at achieving those figures. The plan is geared to build a sustainable economy brick by brick to create the necessary job levels to tackle the current unacceptably high levels of unemployment.

As other speakers have said, this will be done by improving our competitiveness. It is welcome that Ireland's world rankings have improved from 24th to 17th in the competitive stakes, but we need to do much better. We also need to tackle over-regulation, planning issues, local authority costs, energy prices and many other elements that contribute to making us less competitive. We should continue to strongly support Irish and multinational exporting companies that have added 20,000 jobs in the past year.

I am pleased to see we are targeting sectors with the potential to create jobs, such as tourism, food and ICT. I welcome the many job announcements that have been made in the past year by major multinationals. Most of the jobs are located in Cork and Dublin, although some are thankfully in Galway city. Not enough jobs are going into the regions, however, and I have spoken to the Minister about this. Large towns like Ballinasloe have suffered significant job losses with the demise of traditional manufacturing, but not enough replacement jobs are spreading into the regions. I hope that situation will improve as more jobs come into our country.

I am pleased that there is a renewed emphasis on manufacturing in the jobs plan. There will be a regional enterprise strategy for each region. In addition, the IDA will build some advance facilities in areas where private enterprise is not meeting that need. We must concentrate on helping the domestic economy as part of the jobs action plan. The tourism and construction sectors have huge potential for job creation. The cutting of the VAT rate on tourism services, shortly after the Government took office, has created 22,000 jobs. It is vital this tax reduction is maintained. I know the Minister, Deputy Bruton, will be having discussions about this with the Minister for Finance.

The abolition of the travel tax in the previous budget has sparked a significant commitment by our airline carriers which hopefully will bring many additional tourists here. The success of the Gathering must be built upon and I am pleased to see that a new tourism strategy is soon to be published. We have a wonderful tourism product which will be further enhanced by the addition of the Wild Atlantic Way, a driving route from Donegal to west Cork, with attractions including beaches, golf courses and castles. In some sectors it is now being renamed as the ring road, but we do not mind what it is called. I am sure the Cathaoirleach will be happy to see additional tourists arriving into the west. We must be competitive and deliver value for money. I am greatly concerned that elements of the hospitality sector tend to exploit special events by hiking prices. This is something of which we need to be very conscious.

The construction sector has a key role to play in our recovery, but it is too small for the needs of a growing economy. Approximately 70 school projects will help, as will the energy retrofit plan for local authority houses. Tax relief in the budget for home improvements and extensions is beginning to have an impact. Many small builders are telling me the number of jobs they are pricing is significantly up on last year. It is to be hoped that many of those will come to fruition in the course of this summer.

The retail sector is referred to in the jobs programme but retailers are struggling in rural towns. Bad planning decisions that allowed large multiples to locate on the outskirts of towns have done untold damage to town centre businesses. In addition, rates and local authority charges are crippling small businesses, as are parking charges.

We should also be cognisant of the impact the black economy is having on small businesses. At the Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation yesterday, I spoke to the Minister about the need to resource local enterprise offices adequately, as they have the potential to kick-start many small enterprises.

I agree with Senator Mary Ann O'Brien who spoke about trading online and the amount of business that is now being done via the Internet. I welcome that 2,000 micro and small businesses will be targeted over the next two years to support them with online trading.

Significant supports are available to businesses, but not every business is aware of all those supports. I urge the Minister and the Department to do everything possible to communicate with the business sector about such supports in order that firms will have an opportunity to add additional staff numbers this year. That would help to drive our unemployment rate well below 10% by 2016.