Blaney questions Fine Gael’s credibility on jobs strategy
Local Fianna Fáil TD Niall Blaney has questioned Fine Gael’s credibility on jobs creation after its Finance Spokesperson Michael Noonan rubbished claims made in its jobs strategy, New Era. 15/07/10During an interview on Newstalk’s Breakfast programme (Wednesday 14th July), Deputy Noonan rubbished claims his party’s economic stimulus plan could create 105,000 jobs saying, “Quite frankly I don’t believe it would.” He went on to say that the job creation claims in the document, which is the brainchild of his party colleague, Simon Coveney TD as “a public relations add-on that enthusiastic people attached to it.”
Deputy Blaney believes that the people of Donegal deserve to have clear policy initiatives outlined by anyone stating a desire to form the next Government and has questioned Fine Gael’s credibility in this important area.
“Fine Gael has been going all around the country in recent months, claiming this document would be the answer to all the country’s problems. Now we see that even their new finance spokesperson, an experienced politician in the form of Deputy Michael Noonan, doesn’t believe his own party’s proposals are realistic.”
“The people of Donegal need to know what they will be voting for come the next General Election and given this has been a huge part of Fine Gael’s policy platform, I think we need to have some clear answers on this subject.”
“It was interesting that Deputy Noonan also claimed in his interview that Fine Gael are “reviewing policies as we go along”. How can the electorate believe that Fine Gael is ready for Government when we don’t know which policies they will stick with and which ones they will roll back on?”
“Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil in Government has made it our number one priority 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 are fully committed to creating the proper conditions to support job creation.”
“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 Taoiseach has also just announced a €500 Innovation Fund to attract high quality employers to Ireland.
“We are continuing to invest heavily in infrastructure. At 5% of GNP, our capital programme is twice the European average.”
“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.”
“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,” concluded Niall Blaney TD.
