The President of the Workers’ Party, Michael Finnegan, has said today’s much vaunted launch of the Government’s
“Action plan for jobs” is mere hype and an insult to the almost half a million people signing on the live register
each week.
“The key failure of the government’s plan is obvious as early as the
second paragraph of the executive summary. The document states: “Governments don't create jobs, successful businesses and entrepreneurs do.” . This is just a cop out and underlines the reality
that this is merely a spoon-feeding exercise for reluctant entrepreneurs”.
“At a time when oil and gas stocks worldwide are diminishing there is no mention
of the use of our own resources. Furthermore the omission of any public sector element in the new jobs
plan announced by the government today is a fatal missing link” Mr. Finnegan
said that the exclusion of direct state involvement in job creation was down to ideology, not public finances.
He said that the government was continuing the same failed jobs strategy of the previous government, based on propping
up private enterprises and attracting foreign direct investment at a time when that sector is more interested in working in
economies where labour is cheap and protections for workers are almost non-existent.
“Even if the latest jobs announcement was 100% successful, and that is highly unlikely, it would still not bring
Ireland out of its jobs crisis, there would still be more than one-third of a million people out of work. The one sector in
this country which has consistently shown its resilience and ability to create sustainable jobs is the public sector and in
particular the state companies like the ESB, Bord Gais and An Post. However the
government and in particular Fine Gael has a vehement and poisoned ideological hang up about the state sector. It has accepted
the thrust of the McCarthy report and is wired into the EU/IMF plan which is also anti public sector”, said Mr. Finnegan.
“There is no reason”, said Mr. Finnegan, “why a state company could not set establish a cloud computing
centre or get involved in the areas of green technology. The only thing preventing this is the Fine Gael’s venomous
hostility to the public sector and the Labour Party’s unwillingness to stand up to anti-public sector cheerleaders like
Richard Bruton and Leo Varadkar in cabinet. The track record of the public sector
in job creation and in innovation is impeccable and cannot be matched by any indigenous private sector company – not
by a mile”
“This over hyped jobs plan, like the much-vaunted jobs budget before it, is doomed to failure. It is dependent
on a series of ‘ifs and buts’ and the whims of a private sector that is far more interested in purloining workers’
redundancy and pocketing their state-backed Anglo bonds”, said the Workers’ Party President.
Issued 12th February 2012