Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion. There are some aspects of it which I find favourable and others with which I do not agree. I come from an employer background. At one stage, I employed over 30 people. While we were not totally familiar with the unions or their workings, if my employees wanted to join one, they were more than welcome to do so.I told them to ensure I was aware, as an employer, of their entitlements. At various times, they brought it to my notice that they were entitled to holidays and days off. We approached these issues collectively. I lived up to my responsibilities as an employer and they lived up to their responsibilities as employees by bringing to my notice exactly what was due to them. I would like to think that this happens in most small businesses around the country. Unfortunately, many small businesses have gone to the wall. A new mechanism needs to be put in place. Most of my employees were hard-working, diligent and honest. I would like to think they got their redundancy entitlements when those businesses went to the ground. I want to point out that because most businesspeople were self-employed, they were left without any safety net despite working 80, 90 or 100 hours a week. These people, like many farmers, used all their savings to try to save their small businesses and retail businesses. Maybe some of their businesses were not fit for purpose. Some small retailers could not compete with Tesco, Lidl and Aldi. Senator Butler referred to the core areas in which many jobs were lost. I will not call this cohort of people "the new poor" because they are probably better off without such a label. As someone who formerly employed more than 30 people in the retail trade and in the bar and restaurant sector, I believe there is a tendency to overlook this aspect of the matter.

I absolutely agree with the first three paragraphs of the motion that has been proposed by the Labour Party. Some 175,000 jobs have been created since the establishment of the first Action Plan for Jobs in 2012. The rate of unemployment has fallen to 8.3% from a peak of 15.1% in 2011. The economy is now bigger than it was before the crash. Ireland was the fastest growing economy in Europe in 2014 and 2015. I think the good work has started in earnest. I congratulate the Labour Party which, along with Fine Gael, protected workers' rights in the last Government. It was not thanked for the hard work it did in this regard. I come from a different ethos, as I have said, so it was a great education for me and my Fine Gael colleagues to be able to work with the Labour Party. Even though each of the two parties has its own ethos, both parties are the same in many ways. The same approach is taken by many people in Fine Gael, the Labour Party and many other parties. For example, we agreed to exempt 450,000 low-income workers from the universal social charge, to increase the minimum wage by 20% from €7.65 to €9.15 and to protect core social welfare rates. People might argue with some of the things that were done in very difficult times.

The Minister is very welcome. I am so happy to see the economy now driving ahead. If it continues to drive ahead, we will be able to protect vulnerable people in our society. That is what it is all about. I would like to speak about the importance of creating jobs and enabling people to go out to work. I am absolutely delighted every time I hear the Minister on the radio in the morning. She is working to create jobs and get people back to work, thereby improving their self-esteem. The economic benefits of job creation allow us to allocate more money to services that protect the vulnerable and give the unemployed a chance to get back to work. Employment levels have increased in all eight regions since the establishment of the first Action Plan for Jobs in 2012. The recovery started on the east coast and is slowly getting to the west coast and to rural areas. We need more of that. I would like to see this happening much more quickly. While I understand the argument that if Dublin does not take off we are wasting our time in the country, but I suggest that Dublin has taken off.

I would like to repeat a point I have made previously regarding the need for jobs. The European Medicines Agency is going to leave the UK because of Brexit. I understand the Government is fighting hard to get the 900 jobs at the agency into this country. It might be assumed that they would be located in Dublin, but what about the west of Ireland? One thousand jobs could be located at the old MBNA office in Carrick-on-Shannon. We need to think outside the box by locating these jobs in a region where 1,000 jobs have the same value as 15,000 or 20,000 jobs elsewhere. People in Mullingar who currently have to travel to Dublin could get to Carrick-on-Shannon in not much more than 40 minutes. People in Boyle and Sligo would have shorter journeys. People in Castlebar could travel to Carrick-on-Shannon in approximately an hour. This is one aspect of the new way in which we need to do business.

I welcome this motion. I am delighted to speak on it. As I have said, we all come from different sides of the coin. Over the last five years, I was taught a lot about the collective way in which unions negotiate. My eyes were opened to it. I am prepared to work with everybody in this House and this Parliament to try to ensure we continue the growth and continue to ensure the money that is collected is well spent and is not thrown away.