Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join Senator Bacik in welcoming the Action Plan for Jobs, published this morning. The initial Action Plan for Jobs launched in 2011 was the foundation on which our economic recovery has been built. In the past four years we have seen over 80,000 more people at work and a considerable drop in the unemployment rate from 15.1% to 10.6%.

The Action Plan for Jobs 2015 is rather ambitious in that it aims to create an environment that will generate 40,000 more jobs this year. There are several laudable features in the plan for this year, in particular the emphasis on the regions and the regional enterprise strategy to be rolled out throughout the country. I support the call for a debate with the Minister on aspects of the Action Plan for Jobs and particularly the regional enterprise strategy.

Certain regions in the country have suffered badly in recent years through unemployment, including the part of the country I come from, the town of Ballinasloe, which has lost more than 1,000 industrial jobs in the past decade. I hope this particular region will be targeted as part of the regional enterprise strategy and that the €25 million funding initiative will encourage stakeholders in each region to co-operate to develop projects to support enterprise and job creation.

Another thing I like is the emphasis on start-ups, in particular the concept of a start-up gathering to be held in 2015. We know what The Gathering did for tourism. I hope a gathering-type initiative will bring together all potential entrepreneurs as well as successful and well-established entrepreneurs to help to generate many new ideas and initiatives. Generally speaking, the emphasis on leveraging all the talent in the country and the national talent skills drive to target a 60% increase in information and communications technology graduates by 2018 is laudable and worthy of support.

The Action Plan for Jobs has an emphasis on the domestic economy and an increased focus on job creation in the domestic economy in every town and village, including measures to support retail and construction, which, as we know, has great potential given the housing shortage. We are probably all aware of tradesmen and craftsmen who are considering a move back to Ireland to take up the new positions that will become available as a result of an improvement in the construction sector and to meet the considerable housing demand.