Ireland will not create the conditions where jobs can be created if politicians insist on cuts to everything. A stimulus package is the real answer to unemployment and the economic crisis.
This is the view of Sinn Féin Galway East candidate, Councillor Dermot Connolly, who launched the party’s ten-point plan for job creation in Loughrea recently.
The party says its proposals are “fully costed, credible, and have the potential to create 160,000 jobs” and many more training places.
The plan also advocates transferring €7 billion from the National Pension Reserve Fund over the next three and a half years for a State-wide investment programme - a jobs stimulus package, with €2 billion of this being spent on employment stimulus in 2011.
“We cannot cut our way out of recession,” said Cllr Connolly. “Unemployment has reached record highs with 100,000 people set to emigrate over the next two years. These people want to work. They are enthusiastic, experienced, and are ready and willing to work towards getting the country and the economy back on its feet.”
Cllr Connolly also said that some aspects of the ten-point plan will “directly and immediately get people back to work in Galway East”.
Cllr Connolly said the plan proposes building 100 new primary health care centres throughout the State at a cost of €500 million to alleviate the strain on the main hospitals.
“It would provide local health care for a variety of medical conditions and an excellent resource for communities,” he said. “Our pre-budget submission provides for the lifting of the current recruitment embargo, which would allow all these centres to be staffed in the years following their construction.”
The plan also proposes an increased school building and refurbishment programme for 2011 to take at least 125 schools through the construction stage.
“A 16-classroom generic repeat design project costs approximately €3 million in current market conditions,” he said. “This would cost €375 million in total and create approximately 4,000 jobs directly and 1,600 indirect jobs.”
