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With unemployment figures rising to 7,712 in North Tipperary, Fine Gael Deputy Noel Coonan said Fine Gael is using its first Dáil motion to call on the Government to steer Ireland away from economic disaster by putting jobs at the centre of a new confidence-building strategy. Over 80% of job losses have hit those under the age of 30 and there is a brain drain from North Tipperary as many young educated people choose to emigrate.
Before and during this unfolding jobs crisis Fine Gael consistently warned the Government about the destruction of our export sector, the folly of building permanent spending on the back of a temporary property boom, the refusal to reform our public service and the danger of making the taxpayer underwrite the appalling losses of buccaneering bankers.
In contrast to the current ineffective Fianna-Fáil-led regime, Fine Gael in Government sees job creation as number one priority, especially in North Tipperary where unemployment has grown by 105% in the last two years jumping up from 3,762.
As the Dáil reconvenes this Wednesday, Deputy Coonan said both he and his party colleagues will be urging the Government to implement Fine Gael’s radical alternative approach to job creation. Some of Fine Gael’s key initiatives are, for example, to take up the challenge of Michael O’Leary who promises six million extra tourists if the airport tax is scrapped, to use funding from the National Pension Reserve Fund to provide the seed capital for an alternative source of credit for small business and to cut the cost of employing people by reducing employers PRSI.
Deputy Coonan said: “This Government has been putting the interests of bankers ahead of the interests of taxpayers and those who put them in Government in the first place. Ireland needs a new Government with fresh policies and new thinking. This Wednesday we will be pushing for measures to be introduced to help our starving economy such as the slashing of unnecessary red tape for small businesses and providing partial loan guarantees for small and medium sized enterprises. Alongside this, the Fianna Fáil-led Government must provide second chance education and traineeship positions for unemployed young people.
“If the Government had taken Fine Gael’s advice to wind down Anglo-Bank when we first mooted it, we would not be in this situation where the Government is putting their hands in our pockets and exposing taxpayers,” concluded the local Fine Gael TD.
Deputy Noel Coonan has slammed this Government for its failed and flawed policies as unemployment reached 7,712 in North Tipperary for the month of August, an increase of 3,950 on August 2008. The local Fine Gael TD said this jump of almost 4,000 in two years represents a Celtic Tiger that has long lost its roar in North Tipperary as constituents become more disillusioned with this dysfunctional Government.
