Govt Could Create Up To 25,000 Jobs According To Proposals

The Government could create up to 25,000 new jobs next year and a further 50,000 by the end of 2014 if it adopted a set of workable proposals put forward by the National Executive Council (NEC) of SIPTU.

In a document entitled 'Towards a New Course' the NEC has called on the Government to lower its planned budget adjustment of €3.5 billion for 2013 and intensify efforts to boost investment and jobs in order to escape an even

more disastrous recession next year. It argues that the EU/IMF/ECB troika must be persuaded to reduce its expectations for the reduction of the budget deficit over the next two years.

The NEC also calls for the immediate creation of a new Strategic Investment Bank to facilitate economic recovery and argues that the Government could also encourage household spending if it allowed the early drawdown of pension savings.

"The Government faces a choice in that it can stick rigidly to the 2013 budgetary plan and knowingly depress the domestic economy or it can take account of internal economic conditions and redistribute the deficit reduction measures between 2013 and 2015," the document, agreed by the NEC stated.

"The Troika must be persuaded that lowering the budget adjustment scheduled for 2013 and increasing efforts to boost investment and employment growth is the only hope for Ireland coming anywhere close to meeting the budget deficit targets in 2015.

"We need an investment plan which will make a major employment impact. The Government's €2.25 billion investment stimulus spread over 7 years, while welcome, does not go far enough.

"At a time when tender prices are back at 1998 levels and 40% of those on the Live Register are workers skilled in the crafts and related construction industries, the Government can and must do more."