REACTION:THE GOVERNMENT will publish quarterly progress reports on its action plan on jobs, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said yesterday.
“This action plan is going to be actioned and monitored and I will oversee its implementation,” he told a news conference at the Leopardstown headquarters of the Icon clinical research company.
His department would be working closely with other departments, and there would be constant monitoring of progress, with quarterly published reports.
Acknowledging that not everything in the plan was new, Mr Kenny said: “There are some things in here that have been lying around for a very long time.
“I make no apology, because these are good ideas that were not implemented: there is no reason why this Government should not implement them.” It was creating the atmosphere and environment where “100,000 net new jobs” could be created by 2016.
Asked if there would be a change of emphasis from export-oriented companies, Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton said exports were “going to be vital”.
“Equally we recognise that many of the small businesses that will create employment in the near future will be reliant initially on the domestic market.”
Questioned on the “finder’s fee” to be paid to those who bring job projects, Mr Bruton said: “We have appointed an operator . . . who will effectively run the administration so that people who wish to introduce a potential new investor will contact the operator.”
It was “essentially aimed at smaller businesses” and where the project was a sustained one “the operator would get up to €4,000 per job”.
He added: “This is an opportunity to reach out to Irish people with contacts across the globe.”
On the issue of keeping Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate of corporation tax as an incentive to foreign investors, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said: “The Government have made it very, very clear that we will not be changing the rate of corporation tax.”
Fianna Fáil spokesman Willie O’Dea said later: “The plan contains a significant lack of imagination and focuses more on organisational changes rather than stimulus measures to create jobs.”
Sinn Féin spokesman Peadar Tóibín said: “The Government proposals today were mostly a rehash of initiatives already unveiled and the plan is to implement them within existing, significantly reduced, budgets.”
Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary David Begg said the plan was a welcome initiative but suffered from key deficiencies.
Employers’ organisation Ibec said the plan featured a range of practical measures that would help businesses to create jobs.