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

The rates of long-term youth unemployment and youth unemployment are coming down. There have been 30,000 fewer long-term unemployed over the past two years. We are having an impact but the Senator is correct that we have to build on the measures. However, I reject the suggestion by Sinn Féin that some of the measures, such as JobBridge, are not effective. Senator Hildegarde Naughton dealt with that.

I do not accept that foreign direct investors receive charmed treatment in comparison with Irish businesses. The reality in my Department is that 70% of the money I spend goes to SMEs. Only 30% goes to the multinational sector. Virtually all the initiatives we have been driving, be they to help start-ups, improve access to finance, make it easier to recruit, help people to find new markets overseas, build capability in companies through innovation and partnership agreements of different sorts, or build sectors such as the food and tourism sectors, are focused exclusively on the capability of our indigenous companies. We are determined to build an indigenous engine of growth. In the past 12 months, we have heard some fantastic stories. Irish companies such as Combilift, EPS in Mallow, Glanbia and Lakeland Dairies are fantastic and as good as any Mittelstandcompany in Germany. Irish companies have come through the recession toughened and they are looking way beyond the traditional markets of the United Kingdom and even the rest of Europe. They are now considering global markets and have global ambition. There are many of them throughout the country, in all regions.

Senator Kelly raised the role of smaller towns and suggested, in particular, a tax-free zone. The issue of tax-free zones is well outside my area so the Senator would need to take it up with the Minister for Finance. There have been mixed experiences of designated tax zones. We have seen their upside and downside. The one in Shannon, for example, was regarded as very innovative. Some of the other zones, which were created with the best of intentions, did not always have the intended impact and tended to drive towards construction rather than genuine, sustainable growth in communities.

The issue of child care costs was raised by Senator Craughwell, and he was right to do so. As we face the challenge of achieving full employment and maximising economic potential in the country, we will have to address child care costs in a more creative way. It requires money. Some €250 million is being spent at present on child care costs. This reaches approximately 100,000 children in total in just one year under the early childhood care and education scheme. Some disadvantaged parents get greater support over a more sustained period. As we seek to meet the challenges of creating a full-employment economy, this is one of the matters we will have to address.

I dispute the view expressed by Senator Craughwell, and repeated by Senator Cullinane, that the jobs being created are low-paid, unstable and uncertain. That is simply not the case. CSO figures show that all the jobs created in the past two years have been full-time. Part-time work is in decline at present. In the early part of the recession, there was a growth in part-time jobs. This trend is now subsiding and there is now strong growth in full-time employment. The jobs are being created in high-paid sectors. More than half are being created in high-paid sectors, such as those supported by the IDA and Enterprise Ireland and those in financial services. Of course, there is growth in lower-paid employment also. There has to be a balance. There is a recovery in the growth of high-paid construction jobs. Therefore, the comments of the Senators are not true.

We are examining the issue of zero-hours contracts. We set up a study specifically on that. We are examining the capacity to increase the minimum wage. What the Senators suggested is certainly not true. People keep repeating it. The jobs growth is very much built on very strong enterprises hunting down new sectors. It is a new economy.

Senator Barrett is correct on the neglect of apprenticeships. This has been a considerable area of weakness in the Irish industrial base forever by comparison with countries such as Germany and Austria. We do not have the tradition of investment in apprenticeships. The call that was made in January under SOLAS has been very successful. Some 86 proposals have emerged from coalitions of sectors to take up apprenticeships. Roughly 41 pertain to the construction sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture, construction and natural resources. It is encouraging to see 24 in manufacturing. That is a really good number.Another 26 are in business services, namely, financial services, IT, trade and distribution, sales and marketing while 18 are in more personal areas such as tourism, the arts and craft sectors. There is a good mix of emerging sectors which need to be supported.

I agree with Senator Keane that not everything in the garden is rosy. We are on a journey but we are successively cutting away things that obstruct the growth of businesses. That is one of the merits of the annual Action Plan for Jobs in that each year we look afresh at what can be done and we set targets in different areas. We delivered on the 25% red tape reduction, with €300 million saved by business as a result of various red tape reduction measures by my Department.

With regard to community enterprise centres, we intend having a competitive call under our regional strategy for enterprise initiatives and this will be open to established community enterprise centres or private sector groups or any groups who are willing to form. There will be an open call to create stronger centres that can support start-ups. That is a very important part of our work.

Senator MacSharry highlighted the job losses in Sligo, which is very disappointing. I refer Senator MacSharry to what happened at Stiefel in Sligo, where a company facing closure re-invented itself and it is now in a growth phase. It has recently won a leading mandate from a multinational as a result of the work of the people in that company. We are committing to advance facilities in Sligo. The IDA performance in the north west is exceptionally strong. I do not have the numbers with me but I think it is approximately a 20% growth in the employment base in the past two years. That is a really strong performance in the north west. I refer Senator Ó Domhnaill to that information. However, we need to do more.

I thank Senator Cullinane because he has been banging on the door about the need for progress in the south east. I absolutely agree with him on that. He has acknowledged today that we have made progress and need to continue along that line. I have dealt with his fear that what we have set out is unachievable. I believe the targets we set out are achievable. However, if we want to create a sustainable full employment economy, we cannot rest on our oars. We will need to see significant change in the way we create and generate challenge. That will present challenges in our universities and in the apprenticeship system. Those institutions will be challenged because they are the boiler house of the future of our economy. It is about a war for talent and it will be a challenging period for people working in those institutions to meet the growing demands and to open themselves to the changes that will be created by the growth sectors we hope to develop. It is interesting to read the IDA strategy or the Enterprise Ireland strategy and to note how central to that sector is the creation, development and retention of talent. There are many areas where we need to continue to be very reforming. It is disappointing to hear some people say, in the context of public pay, that there can be no linking or demands for productivity. Productivity in education means better outcomes for kids. We have to continually looking at how to achieve better outcomes.

Senator Ó Domhnaill is correct in that we have had to cut back public service jobs to fit the resources available. One could look at that from another perspective and see how strong has been the private sector recovery has been, with 90,000 extra people at work. That is a net figure, taking out the reduction in public sector jobs. We are in a position to rebuild public services in a very guarded and careful way and to restore some of the money that people in the public service had to sacrifice and to reduce taxes. If we continue to take a prudent approach and build those new commitments on the back of genuine employment creation and high productivity performance, we can deliver it.

I dispute the figure quoted by Senator Ó Domhnaill that 94% of the jobs are in Dublin and in the mid east, as it is called. That is simply not true. More than half of all the jobs created by the agencies are outside of Dublin and the mid east. The Nevin Economic Research Institute, NERI, report is simply wrong in that it picked a short time period and used statistics in a certain way to try to create a certain impression. In any one year, some regions will show a decrease. The very same statistic could have been presented saying that the midlands, the south east and the north west accounted for 75% of the growth. However, because some regions saw a decline, the view is distorted. One needs to be a more extended period of time to see where the job creation is occurring. There is plenty of job creation outside Dublin but not in every region equally. That is one of the challenges. The Department is creating a regional enterprise strategy. We are taking up that issue which has been raised here, in the Dáil and in the committees. We are taking on that challenge. It will not be easy but we are going through a process of regional stakeholder consultations, one of which was held recently in the north west and which was very successful. We will have regional calls where €100 million in resources from Enterprise Ireland will be available for people coming forward with sectoral or start-up initiatives that could work in their region. Those meetings have been well attended and there is a commitment. It is distinct from the infrastructural issues raised by Senators Ó Domhnaill and MacSharry. I do not mean to denigrate those because, of course, we need better broadband, better roads, better infrastructure and better water services and these must be included in a development plan.

I am trying to ensure the creation of a stronger enterprise capability in our regions by exploiting the competitive strengths of regions. Drumshanbo is a good case in point where a food hub has been created which is playing to the strengths of the region. There is a training centre, a distillery, a brewery and all sorts of food-related activities in a cluster and they are doing very well. It points to the capability for building a hub of excellence in a fairly isolated area.

I thank Senators for their contributions. I fully support what they are asking which is to continue with the Action Plan for Jobs. It will be even more important in the coming years to have that broad-based approach. The one thing we cannot afford is to allow some sort of reform fatigue to set in or people thinking that reform was for the difficult times. Every growing business is continually looking at its processes, the innovation of its products and services and it is investing to build on that.

The issues raised by Senators, such as full employment by 2018, will be central to the work I will undertake over the remaining period available to me. I plan to deliver the roll-out of the regional strategy by mid-year, by July at the latest. I agree with the contention that employment is the most cost-effective anti-poverty measure. The risk of being in poverty is 37% for those out of work and it drops to 5% for those in work. If we can get more people out of the unemployed column and into the employed column, we will reduce the risk of poverty by seven and a half times. It has a massive impact on families. Full employment really should be a central policy. In my view, the purpose of the spring economic statement is to have a genuine debate about the sort of budget we want in 2016 but also about our vision for the country. For me, sustainable full employment by 2018 has to be at the heart of any vision. It is not just a narrow economic agenda. If we can get 200,000 extra people back at work, that is 200,000 lives back on track. It is 200,000 pay packages being spent in our communities, towns and villages.It is 200,000 workers contributing tax to allow us build the infrastructure and services.

The other side of the challenge is we must recognise that some of the success that we enjoyed and saw in the Celtic tiger years was not authentic. It was not only that it was built on construction, but also that it was not built on the sort of sustainable values upon which a community ought to build success. We have an opportunity over the next couple of years not only to be prudent but also to bring values to bear on the sort of choices we make. We must value enterprise and entrepreneurship, but we also must put in a process of solidarity with those who cannot achieve and support them. We need absolutely to commit to the sort of opportunities needed to equip people for the future, and all those require big changes. A full employment goal is a challenging one. It is a tough and challenging road for the next couple of years. However, it fulfils all of our ambitions, which is to ensure our families and their children have the chance to live and work at home if that is what they choose. It is central to what we ought to do.

As we approach next year in which we will hold elections, what needs to be at the core is the question of how we, as a community, sustain full employment. If I have on criticism for Sinn Féin and others, it is that I do not hear enterprise as any part of their vision of where this country is going. I never hear them say how one builds successful businesses that can grow, what the ingredients are to make that happen and how one celebrates those who make those businesses. That is very much a part of what we need to see as a country. We cannot reduce the difficulties, as if there is someone at fault for every difficulty. Difficulties are there to be solved, not to find someone to blame for them. Too much of the dialogue I hear in the other House is about finding someone to blame. Often, it is convenient persons, such as bankers, Irish Water or some whipping boy.