Blaney rejects Fine Gael claims of Government inaction over jobs

Fianna Fáil TD for Donegal North East Niall Blaney has today rejected claims by Fine Gael that the Government lacks a jobs strategy.

Deputy Blaney was responding to a statement by the party’s Enterprise spokesperson Richard Bruton who was commenting on an OECD report on employment published today.

Deputy Blaney said: “Contrary to claims by Fine Gael, the Government’s number one priority is to get people back to work. It is the driving force behind everything that we do. We appreciate the difficulties facing families across the country that have been affected by unemployment and we remain fully committed to creating the proper conditions to support job creation. ”

Deputy Blaney said: “While Fine Gael has been busy whipping up people’s fears over unemployment, Fianna Fáil in Government has been tackling the issue head on. Over the past 18 months, we have introduced a wide range of schemes to support employment such as the Enterprise Stabilisation Fund, the Employment Subsidy Scheme and the PRSI jobs Incentive Scheme. The latter scheme was in fact singled out for praise in the OECD report today.”

“We are also continuing to invest heavily in infrastructure. At 5% of GNP, our capital programme is twice the European average.”

Deputy Blaney said: “Our strategy is as much about creating new jobs as it is about supporting unemployed workers so that they can get back into the labour force as the economy turns. This year we are providing almost 160,000 training and work activation places including 9,000 FÁS training places, 23,300 places on the community employment scheme, and 2,000 places on the work placement programme.”

“The OECD has today commended us for substantially expanding the number of training provisions saying that they will play “a crucial role” in ensuring that the long term unemployed stay in touch with the labour market.”

Deputy Blaney concluded: “Our job in Government is to create the right conditions for job creation. We are doing this by stabilising our public finances, fixing the banks and driving down our cost base. We will continue to take the necessary steps to stabilise the economy and help get people back to work.”