Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I am glad the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is here for this debate which is central to the country's economic recovery. Much has been said by many speakers on all sides of the House about where we are at in the country at present, and while recovery is being driven partly by some of the policies of the Government, much of it is being driven by people willing to take risks by establishing their own businesses or creating an additional job in an existing firm. This must be welcomed. While one can blame the Government for not creating enough employment or for all the jobs being lost, it is not the Government's job to create jobs; it is the Government's job to create the environment to provide jobs. While some progress has been made and reference has been made to this, I want to touch on a couple of points.

Over the past 25 or 30 years the average median rate of unemployment in Ireland was approximately 10.86%. The highest unemployment rate was back in 1985, when the country had 17.3% unemployment. The rate was also high before the Government took office due to the economic downturn and the crisis. Half of the jobs lost before that were due to the construction sector which hollowed out as a result of the banking crisis. According to the April figures, we are at approximately 10%. One could say the figures are massaged to an extent by the approximately 86,000 or 87,000 people on various schemes. Some of them are happy to be on schemes as they hope it is a means to an end or a platform for a better future. The viability or non-viability of these schemes is a debate for another day.

With regard to the role of the Government in economic recovery, many jobs have been created but the Government is not necessarily responsible for job creation, apart from in the public sector. If its record on job creation in the public sector since coming to office was examined, it would not be very appetising because 30,000 jobs have been removed from the public sector since 2011. This was done through redundancies and other exit schemes for employees, who have not been replaced. If the Government was serious about rolling out job creation in the public sector, this is an area which could be further utilised.

Employment in the private sector has risen and State agencies such as Enterprise Ireland, Údarás na Gaeltachta, Shannon Development and, in particular, IDA Ireland have been to the fore in creating many of these jobs and assisting companies to create them. With regard to regional disparity in job creation, according to the Nevin Economic Research Institute, NERI, report published a few weeks ago, 94% of all the jobs created through the State agencies in 2014 were in Dublin or the commuter belt. I understand from these figures that only a couple of hundred of these jobs were supported in the north west and a greater number of jobs were lost than created in the south east. A total of 125 new jobs in the south east were announced today and we all welcome this. It is great news. We will have job gains and job losses, and the role of the State is to balance the scale on an upwards trajectory, which is not easy.

The Minister's Department is one of the key Departments in defining where we go as a country over the next 25 years in terms of geography and demographics. According to Teagasc and CSO figures, 60% of the population will live within 25 miles of the eastern seaboard by 2025. This will hollow out rural Ireland. The Department has an obligation to implement a regional development strategy to benefit the regions and clearly this is not happening. Economists may argue that foreign direct investment companies now look at basing their enterprises in cities rather than countries. If we want to go ahead with this fine, but if the State has a role in providing the environment to create jobs then by extension it also has a role in providing the environment to make it attractive for those companies to locate in the regions.

My age group has left my county of Donegal. The only people left are those who are unemployed, who have a job in the State or who have a mortgage. Those who have the option of leaving have left and many of them have emigrated. Over the past four years, 145,000 people have left the State with a third level qualification. Many of them may not return. I hope they will. People say one has an option to leave and one will see the world but if one establishes roots in another country, one will not return. We must decide whether we are serious about the critical issue of balanced regional development. We are either serious about providing money to the regions or we are not. We must look at how we spend money, value for money in the economy and the fairness in where money is spent with regard to capital investment. A fundamental reason many companies do not go into the regions is to do with broadband. A total of 30% of most of the properties in the State have inadequate broadband and they are all located in the regions. This needs to be addressed. The Government must take this by the scruff of the neck and decide on these fundamental and core objectives.

The OECD published a report on Ireland's employment trajectory over the past six months and its recommendations were startling. They were all based on what I have just said about the inadequacy of Government policy in supporting the regions. I know great work must be done, but it is our job to come here and raise issues on which we think there should be a focus. While a rising tide may raise all boats, if we leave Dublin develop at a much faster pace than the rest of the country we will be left with a two-tier recovery and this will only lead to what is projected in the CSO figures, whereby people move from west to east and if one wants to have a holiday home in the west fine, but one will live, work and have a mortgage in Dublin . This is not what-----