Stance on rubbished FG Policy

Date: 15/07/2010
Posted by: Darragh

REILLY SHOULD OUTLINE STANCE ON RUBBISHED FG POLICY

I am calling on my Fine Gael constituency colleague, Deputy O'Reilly, to outline where he stands on Fine Gael's job strategy, which has been thrown into turmoil after it was rubbished by new Fine Gael finance spokesman, Michael Noonan T.D. I have has asked Deputy Reilly to outline if he backs the FG New Era plan, or if he supports the claims made by their new finance spokesman.

During 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 T.D. as "a public relations add-on that enthusiastic people attached to it."

The people of Dublin North deserve to have clear policy initiatives outlined by anyone planning on forming the next Government. 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 very realistic.

It was also interesting that Deputy Noonan also claimed in his interview that Fine Gael was "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?

The Government's policies are clear. We are restoring confidence by stabilising the banks and the public finances. This is creating jobs and new investment which can be seen by the recent announcement that Stream Ireland Ltd. was establishing a base in Swords, creating 425 jobs. Dublin North has benefited from other recent jobs announcement including over 1000 jobs at T2 at Dublin Airport, over 70 jobs at Eirtech.

The Employer (PRSI) Incentive scheme will create thousands of jobs by cutting the cost of hiring staff for employers and €12 billion euro in credit for small businesses over the next two years will protect and create jobs in all sectors. And unlike Fine Gael's discredited plan the IDA has put forward a comprehensive strategic blueprint for attracting Foreign Direct Investment, targeting job creation in the services sector and investing in Next Generation Networks. This will utterly transform the business and employment landscape in Ireland and key targets of the strategy up to 2014 include 105,000 new jobs and 640 investments.