Crowe Challenges Government Jobs Spin

In response to publication of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs Sinn Féin’s Seán Crowe accused Labour and Fine Gael of being duplicitious with the truth on job creation and claimed they recycling previously announced measures.

Deputy Seán Crowe said:

“Since entering into government in 2011 employment has supposedly increased by 58,600 but this figure falls far short of Labour and Fine Gael’s commitment to create 100,000 jobs during their term in office. What they also fail to tell the public is that for every single job they claim has been created five people have emigrated. There are now 48,500 less under 35s employed since Labour and Fine Gael took up office, and one out of every four under-25s are still out of work.

“If this particular Government was to deliver full employment by 2018 then they would need to create 43,275 net new jobs every year, which seems an extraordinary commitment in the context of their record to date which averages 14,650 jobs year on year.

“A line up of Government Ministers are  telling us that their Jobs announcement for 2015 puts jobs centre stage, yet all we have is a few new recycled paragraphs that are a rehash of their 2014 commitments. There is no meat on the bones nor is there any mention of any initiatives for areas like Dublin South West which has some of the highest rates of unemployed in the state.

“Indigenous SME and micro-businesses access to public procurement, particularly in the areas of goods and services which are worth around €9 billion annually to the domestic economy, has been raised time and time again with Government Ministers.

“Again their rehashed Jobs Plan does nothing to address the blockages that are clearly in the system.

“Labour and Fine Gael’s decision to rehash their 2014 ecommerce commitments will be particularly disappointing to small small retailers as currently that sector is losing 75% of the €6bn online sales each year to companies outside of Ireland.

“Every 1% of lost revenue Irish businesses win back boosts the local economy by roughly €40m yet the government has delivered no new proposals to increase online trading.

“When dealing with strategic state investment there is no new direction coming from government. Many of us had hoped in vain that some of the older promises like  a significant increase in new social housing builds particularly in the Dublin area (where the crisis is worst getting worse) would get attention. Sadly this doesn’t seem to be the case.

“Behind the  Ministerial smiles and promises, the unemployed are  being left with no real prospect of a job and only an early election give many of them hope for a new beginning.”

“New house builds would also  create new  jobs, reduce inequality and stabilise house prices, but that mustn’t have been in the old script.”