Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a honour to defer to the Fighting 69th. They are very welcome. I also welcome the Minister of State. We had a comprehensive discussion on industrial development yesterday. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation was here for some hours and there was an interesting exchange of views on where we stand. There is genuine pleasure at the 61,000 jobs added in the past 12 months. It is an area of policy that is working very well.

I offer my support and good wishes to the Minister of State in the amendments he is proposing to this Bill. This is a very dynamic area. He needs to change his suite of policy instruments and institutions and not have them become encrusted in traditions such that they no longer fulfil roles. Retiring schemes, bodies and organisations in favour of novelty innovation is a key element of the Department, and we need innovation in the way it operates itself. I am happy, on behalf of the independent university Senators, to support the Minister of State's amendments today.

This job is complex, as we found out yesterday in respect of the large decline in the number of young people at work in Ireland since this recession started. However, we are fighting back. The 61,000 jobs were created on a low measure of economic growth last year at 1%. To increase employment in the private sector by 4.5% with such low growth shows that many policies are working, but we cannot become complacent. The absorption of Forfás into the Department was to strengthen the Department, according to the Minister. He said it traditionally was a weak Department with very strong agencies. If the Minister of State feels that arrangements at local level could generate more employment and we can add another 61,000 jobs this year, that will be a step forward. It is a pleasure that the policy is being tested and is working overall. It is very necessary. Irish unemployment is now below the European average, but we all feel the European average is far too high. A whole suite of measures is needed and the new thinking in this Bill is important.

The Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, was also in the House yesterday. He impressed us by saying that Ireland must move from a very small number of apprenticeships - I think he mentioned that there were 24 or 25 - to the German, Swiss and Austrian models, where there are more than 300 apprenticeships. Nothing stays still in the vital area of trying to ensure full employment in the modern economy. The dynamics of change are vital and we all hope the changes envisaged here work, and that the local enterprise offices are a success. On that basis, I will be supporting the measures being put before us by the Minister of State.