Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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133. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of jobs that have been created by the action plan for jobs since the introduction of that policy; and the effect, if any, the policy has had on creating employment in the domestic economy. [24565/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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In the Action Plan for Jobs, the Government has set a target of having 100,000 more people at work by 2016. When we launched the first Action Plan in February 2012, I said that the transformation required by our economy would not come through one big bang solution, but through deliberate and determined action across all areas of Government and the private sector.

One year into the Action Plan for Jobs process, we can see the evidence that the strategy and architecture are working. There were 270 individual actions committed to last year, to improve the operating environment for businesses, provide an impetus for emerging sectors, support export growth, and remove barriers to employment-creation across the economy. Over 90% of these actions were completed during 2012.

More importantly, there was a stabilisation in jobs numbers in the last six months of 2012. The Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) for Quarter 4 of 2012 showed the first annual increase in employment since the middle of 2008. Last year, 12,000 jobs were created in the private sector, particularly in export-oriented companies which have been the focus of the Action Plan for Jobs. This compares to the 250,000 private sector jobs lost in the three years before this Government took office.

Enterprise Ireland and IDA client companies created almost 10,000 net jobs between them last year, through their focus on enterprise, innovation and exporting. This was the best performance of the agency client companies in many years.

I acknowledge that job losses continue to occur in parts of the domestic economy. However, we need to bring about a re-structuring of the economy based on strong foundations, and appropriate levels of activity that are sustainable in the longer-term.

This year’s Action Plan for Jobs includes 333 actions for delivery across all Government Departments and 46 Agencies or Offices. In addition to continuing to support export-oriented growth, the Plan includes a number of measures to support the domestic economy. These include actions relating to the Retail and Construction sectors, supporting small and micro-enterprises through the new Local Enterprise Office structure, improving access to finance for businesses including SMEs in the domestic economy, and improving our cost competitiveness.

As a small open economy, Ireland is heavily influenced by developments in international markets. However, the merit of the Action Plan for Jobs is that every year, each Department is required to focus on changes that can be brought about to make a practical contribution to the target of supporting the creation of 100,000 extra jobs in the economy by 2016.