Labour’s election candidate in Kilkenny, Councillor Ann Phelan said that of the 450,000 people on the live register almost half are unemployed for a year or more.
She says that this figure clearly illustrates how much Fianna Fáil and the Greens have abandoned job retention over the past year.
Cllr Phelan stated that Labour’s ‘Plan for Enterprise, Innovation and Growth’ outlines a plan for a coherent jobs and enterprise strategy that will get a grip on the unemployment problem and drive economic growth.
“When Labour was last in Government with Fine Gael we helped create 1,000 additional jobs each week as well as the platform for the economic boom by introducing the 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate.”
She remarked that the outgoing government parties have talked, produced reports, set up committees, but they have done nothing to grow the economy.
“Fianna Fail created a casino economy, which must be replaced with an investment economy, to promote innovation, small firm start-up and world-class infrastructure.”
Ann Phelan, who herself is part of a small family business said that Ireland has significant economic advantages and strengths that can provide the basis for an economic renaissance if the right policies are implemented.
“Labour has a commitment to ring-fencing €500m of tax payers money for a range of initiatives that will attempt to get the unemployed back to work. They will include the following:
Over the past decade global trade has shifted from the developed G7 economies in the direction of the Big Four rapid growing economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries ). However, in recent years the share of Irish trade with the BRICs accounted for less that 4 per cent of our overall external trade She said that Labour will
- set up local trade and investment teams BRIC countries which offer huge trading opportunities for Irish exporters
- appoint individuals from BRIC countries who are living in Ireland as trade champions
- coordinate the work of agencies involved in the promotion of trade and exports through a Trade Council
- appoint a Trade and Enterprise Tzar to work with the Trade Council
In advanced economies, productivity and standards of living can only be enhanced by technological innovation. She said that Labour intends to:
- establish an Innovation Strategy Agency to take over the duties of several key agencies to promote and support investment in technology research
- Labour will create a network of Technology Research Centres such as the Tyndall Centre in UCC, which are focused on applied technological research and commercialisation of intellectual property, to be located in appropriate higher-education institutions.
