Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to support the amendments. I certainly agree with Senator Barrett. We must continue to innovate on how we create jobs. Nothing stands still, and I acknowledge the fine contribution the county and city enterprise boards have made over the years. Some very fine people worked in those organisations and it is only right and proper that we would resolve their pension superannuation and transfer those in an orderly fashion.

It is critical that the new local enterprise offices work in the small towns and villages of rural Ireland. Major industry, particularly foreign direct investment, will go into the major centres of population in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The small towns like Ballinasloe, Loughrea, Athenry and Gort will be dependent on local enterprise offices to kick-start economic activity and encourage entrepreneurial people to get started.

I hope the one-stop shop will cut through much of the red tape and bureaucracy. The county councils need to be more pro-enterprise and pro-business. I hope that the merger of local enterprise offices with the local authorities will help foster that business culture within the local authorities that may have been lacking down through the years. This is a new initiative that will be tried and hopefully it will deliver. Senator Sean D. Barrett said that although 61,000 jobs had been created in the past 12 months, we needed to accelerate the pace of job creation and instill and restore confidence in the local economy. The renewed emphasis on manufacturing is encouraging, as many of the traditional manufacturing enterprises have ceased to operate and have gone to lower-cost economies in the past decade. Let us hope there will be a renewed emphasis on manufacturing in the higher-skill areas.

I compliment the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, on the Action Plan for Jobs and the real commitment to driving it. What sets this plan above other plans from the past is that it is a whole-of-Government approach, with every Department having an input, and the Taoiseach is driving it. That there is a real commitment from the line Ministers is significant. Hopefully the target of getting unemployment below the European average by the end of the year and well below 10% by 2016 will be achieved. They are measurable objectives and, obviously, Government will be held to account. This Government will be judged in 2016 on how well it has delivered on job creation and on how it has got the economy going.

We look forward to seeing the plan for the construction industry rolled out shortly. I firmly believe that without a reasonable level of activity in the construction industry we will not see economic recovery in rural parts of the country.

I am pleased to support the amendments and look forward to the local enterprise offices making a real contribution to job creation and economic activity throughout the country.