David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It would be churlish of any of us in opposition not to accept that we have seen significant numbers of jobs created in recent years since 2011. This Government and this Minister took over an absolute mess that was left by the previous Government. Hundreds of thousands of people were unemployed. Far too many of our young people emigrated. We have lost possibly a generation of young people and they may or may not come back. We hope that many of them do. I know the Minister is focused on creating jobs to position the country to encourage as many of them as possible to come back.

I commend the Minister on the efforts he has made in the south east. We still have a long way to go nationally and in the region I represent, but we have had some significant wins in recent times and these, too, must be commended. Today, more jobs were announced for Bausch & Lomb in Waterford city and I understand more jobs are to be announced in Waterford in the coming weeks and months.

As the Minister is aware, the city was hit hard during the recession. Large numbers of manufacturing jobs were lost. There was much discontent among the Waterford people for a long time because those jobs would not be coming back to the city. Therefore, to see any number of jobs coming back is obviously a boost for all of us. I am keen to put on the record my appreciation of the work the Minister has done in leading a task force and working group for Waterford and the south east in the past three years since the disastrous job losses in TalkTalk in 2012.

Having said that, there is a long way to go. While I have commended the good work done, it is important for those in government not to indulge in over-congratulation or slapping themselves on the back. Certainly, no champagne corks should be opened. The reality is that we still have far too many people unemployed - I expect the Minister will accept that. We have many people in low paid jobs. Some 20% of all workers in this State are in low paid positions and 19% of all workers in the State experience in-work poverty, which is a major problem. We have a difficulty with precarious work, part-time work, low contract hours, under-employment and exploitation in some of those areas, as the Minister well knows. We have discussed many of these issues on the Order of Business and in the Minister's presence at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation as well as in the House on several occasions. Moreover, the Minister will beware of the plight of the Dunnes Stores workers, who represent only one example of the experience of many workers on low pay and low hour contracts who feel they are being exploited by profitable companies. We also have a difficulty with access to services for some people in work, which is a driver of in-work poverty. Child care is one of these difficulties. Lack of affordable housing is also an issue.

While it is important for those of us in opposition to recognise that progress has been made and to acknowledge and celebrate it - every job created should be celebrated and I have done so - I was astounded yesterday when I heard the Minister for Finance make what I saw as rather outlandish commitments on job creation. He said: "we will pass the 2 million people in employment mark next year, replace all of the jobs lost during the downturn by 2018 and, in total, between 2015 and 2020, add 200,000 new jobs." The reality is that 69,300 net jobs have been created in the past four years. A total of 26,900 of these were created in 2014. If the commitments of the Minister for Finance announced on Tuesday are to be met, then the Government's record on job creation would have to increase annually by 50%. That is rather outlandish. I wish the Government the best of luck in its efforts in reaching that bar, but I believe it has been set far too high. I believe it was part the spin and over-sell that we got from the Government as part of its so-called spring statement.

The Minister maintains that our young people are coming back and I hope many of them do. However, the facts and the reality tell a different story, unfortunately. There are 60,900 fewer people aged between 20 and 34 years in employment since Fine Gael and the Labour Party took office. These are facts - the Central Statistics Office figures. The Minister talked about job creation in the State. We hear from IDA Ireland and the enterprise agencies about Ireland Inc. and how it is important that we create jobs. Obviously, it is and we need to create jobs. However, another major problem relates to regional disparities. This was one of the reasons in 2013 I published the south east economic development strategy. I was keen to be part of the solution. I wanted to come up with ideas or proposals and not simply sit back, criticise the Government and declare that we have to create jobs. I was keen to go out, talk to stakeholders and develop policy and realistic credible deliverable proposals that could be implemented and that would help to create jobs in the region, and that is what I did. The reality of the regional imbalance is a concern. Employment in the west has fallen by 4,800 in the year to December 2014 and by 5,000 in the south west. The numbers in employment in the Border region have fallen by 1,300 since this Government took office. While there have been modest increases in employment in the south east, we are still 3.5% above the national average, which is very high.

We have a long way to go. Earlier I raised the matter of low paid jobs and in-work poverty. Unfortunately, many of those jobs are occupied by women. The fact is that 60% of low paid workers are women and 50% of all females earn only €20,000 per annum or less. We must acknowledge the inadequacy of existing legislation to protect vulnerable workers who have no guarantee of hours and no consistency of weekly income.In an effort to be constructive, Sinn Féin published a Private Members' motion which recommended banded-hour contracts, full implementation of the EU part-time working directive, proper collective bargaining, trade union recognition and having a legal right to go from part-time to full-time work if the hours are available. These issues have been supported by the Labour Party. A number of weeks ago a Labour Party Deputy organised a cross-party briefing on all of these issues. We presented ICTU's proposals to the Government in the form of a Private Members' motion and it was rejected.

While I commend all of the good work that has been done, I ask the Minister to look more at regional development and accept we have much more work to do with regard to job creation, and with regard to low pay, particularly precarious work, underemployment and low-hour contracts. We have a significant job of work to do to protect workers in those vulnerable sectors. The Government should also look at the regions and see what more can be done to create jobs outside the urban areas. Those created in urban areas are welcome and should be celebrated, but if we are serious about making sure that everybody benefits from the upturn and we do not have a two-speed two-tier economy between urban and rural, or Dublin, Cork and Galway versus the rest of the country, we need much more regional-focused policies.