Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party)
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147. To ask the Minister for Finance if he has estimated the number of jobs lost as a result of cuts to public spending from 2009 onwards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17589/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Total gross voted expenditure has been reduced from €63.1 billion in 2009 to €54 billion in 2014, with the contraction in current spending accounting for nearly 60 per cent of this fall. As a result of the Moratorium on Recruitment and Promotion introduced in 2009 as an emergency policy response to the crisis in the public finances, public service numbers have been reduced by over 30,000 amounting to a fall of 10 per cent.

Whilst the second-round effects of lower volumes of public spending on economy-wide employment are difficult to quantify in aggregate, it is clear that the expenditure-based component of the consolidation strategy pursued over the period 2009-2014 has supported the recovery in employment growth evidenced to date. Indeed, if public spending had not been reduced, the impact on the labour market would have been even larger, with enormous consequences for the living standards of the Irish people.

Putting the public finances back on a sustainable footing has laid the foundation for economic recovery and is yielding positive dividends in the labour market. Some 95,000 jobs have now been created since the low-point of the crisis, and the targets set out in the Government's Action Plan for Jobs will be achieved earlier than originally envisaged.