Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators who participated in the debate, particularly Senator Hildegarde Naughton, who moved the motion.

We are in a difficult transition; that is the reality. A number of Senators commented on the circumstances when we started out. The reality was that most people were scared out of their wits that their job would be the next to go. That was the environment we were living in. Some 330,000 jobs had been lost. Roughly 20% of the private sector was wiped out in the space of a couple of years. In the case of construction, well over 60% of jobs were wiped out. That has had a huge impact, especially in the regions.

To echo Senator Craughwell, I would be the first to recognise that the effort to rebuild a new economy out of the ashes of the old has been extraordinarily tough on people. I refer not only to the fiscal decisions but also to the employment impact and the pressure on wages. However, we can see that the journey we have travelled is the right one. We can look back on our track record over recent years and see the approach we have taken, a whole-of-government approach, was correct. We knew there was no silver bullet. It was about getting every single Department to state what its part of the jigsaw could do to enhance enterprise growth and create jobs. The work in education is crucial as we seek to consolidate and regrow our economy. The same applies to the work in the Department of Finance in respect of banking and access to finance and the work in the infrastructural Departments across the system, such as the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. We have to continue to work.

We built on the track record we have achieved. We are setting an ambitious target of full employment by 2018. I do not agree with Senator Cullinane when he suggests the Minister for Finance’s projection yesterday that 40,000 new jobs will be created each year over the coming years is unachievable. That is the target we have set for this year, 2015, and we will achieve it. Over the past two years, we delivered 90,000 jobs. That is in excess of 40,000 per year. Therefore, I believe we can achieve the target. At the start of this journey, people said it was unachievable to deliver 100,000 jobs by 2016. We will deliver them 21 months ahead of target.

The Irish economy, businesses and workers have shown extraordinary resilience. Throughout the country, one can hear fantastic stories. Today's story about Bausch & Lomb is fantastic. Some 12 months ago, we were facing the entire closure of its plant, with 1,200 jobs on the line. Today we are seeing €115 million invested, with 175 more jobs back in the company. There are 150 people at work in the construction phase. This is because people recognised change had to be made. They accepted the change, difficult as it was, and now they have won the extra investment. That is a great story.

I accept Senator White’s statement that many legacy issues will remain. We have many difficult issues to address. What characterised this recession, unlike most others, was the huge legacy debt. We all know about the one in the public sector. The one in the private sector was equally great, both in business and households. That is a much harder type of recession to get through. We are working on that steadily.

I do not agree with Senator White's comment that activation measures will not reduce the rate of long-term unemployment. It depends on the figures one is looking at. Quarterly national household survey figures show we have made considerable progress in reducing the rate of long-term unemployment.