Noonan’s first move as spokesperson is to rubbish his own party’s jobs plan - Minister Dara Calleary

That’s according to Dara Calleary, Fianna Fáil TD for Mayo and Minister for Labour Affairs, who made the comments after hearing Deputy Noonan on Newstalk’s Breakfast programme this morning.

Speaking on Breakfast, Michael Noonan rubbished claims that his party’s economic stimulus plan entitled NewEra could create 105,000 jobs saying “Quite frankly I don’t believe it would”.  He described the job creation claims in the document, which is the brainchild of his party colleague, Simon Coveney as “a public relations add-on that enthusiastic people attached to it”.

“This is despite the fact that the Party has launched the policy document with great fanfare no less than three times with party leader Enda Kenny repeatedly endorsing it,” Minister Dara Calleary said.

In his speech at the Fine National conference on March 22nd Deputy Kenny declared that, “Simon’s NewERA plan will create over 105,000 jobs. This will happen through an injection of €18 billion of new money into the Irish economy. They will be delivered within Fine Gael’s first term in government and they will provide real opportunities for all people no matter what their age, and no matter what their trade or qualification.”

Minister Calleary added: “Deputy Noonan also claimed this morning that his party is ‘reviewing policies as we go along’. How can the electorate believe that Fine Gael is ready for Government when we don’t which policies they will stick with and which ones they will roll back on?”

“In contrast this Government has set out our stall clearly. We are spending €40bn over the next six years in worthwhile capital projects. We are supporting those out of work and we have more than doubled the number of training supports to 157, 000 this year. Yesterday we announced that €12 billion will be made available for SMEs through the country’s two biggest banks. We are very clear what our policies are, Fine Gael cannot say the same,” concluded Minister Dara Calleary.