A Ceann Comhairle,
This Government was formed in the face of the worst economic crisis in the history of the State. At a time when the financial survival of the State was in question. At a time when unemployment was rocketing and when the banking system was broken.
At that time, in the middle of the crisis, the immediate tasks facing the Government could be expressed in a small number of Statistics.
The ‘bond yield’ which encapsulated the view from abroad of Ireland’s financial position.
The live register, which showed the rate at which jobs were being lost and lives damaged. The number of mortgages in arrears, which signalled the scale of the social destruction being wrought by household debt.
The loan to deposit ratio in the banking system which showed the extent to which Irish banks had been bloated in an unsustainable property bubble.
Today, those numbers have all improved – and improved dramatically. But Government is not about numbers. Its about people, and as we move into the fourth year of this Government, the tests we face – the tests that we must now pass – are different. The numbers still matter, but the tasks of Government are more diverse and personal than before.
Having left the bailout, the question we must answer is ‘What kind of post-crisis Ireland do we want to create?’ What kind of future do we want to build for our children?
I want Ireland to be a genuine Republic. Where opportunity is open to all our people. Where if you work for a living, you can afford to live. Where a job pays enough to pay the bills, to buy a home and raise a family. Where you can hope for something better for your children, and where you can grow old in safety and dignity.
We want a country where a young person who leaves school or college, can find work, education or training.
Where a young family can afford to buy a home
Where the parents of young children can find a school for their child, that fits with their hopes and beliefs, and where they can bear the cost of sending their children to school.
Where if you get sick, you can afford to go to the doctor
Where an elderly citizen can afford to keep their health insurance, and where they are able to access a hospital when they need to
Where parents can be sure that their children can be children – safe in school and safe online.
You cannot have those things, without sound economics. But they are not just economic questions. They are fundamentally about fairness. They are about whether individuals and families who work hard, and play by the rules, can have a decent standard of living and hope of a better future.
Right now, too many people don’t have that. Too many families in this country are under severe financial strain, living from day to day or from week to week. The legacy of the crisis is still with us, even if the headline indicators have improved.
That is why we are determined to continue the work of restoring the economy and maintaining financial stability. Too much has been sacrificed, for anyone to now put the recovery at risk. There can be no return to the failures of the past, or to fairytale economics.
What we do now after the bailout has to be guided by four principles.
Firstly, we need a sustainable prosperity. Too many of our people still don’t have work, or don’t have enough work. We have to create more and better jobs.
Secondly, we need a shared prosperity, which means that we have to invest in our people, and make sure that recovery is spread across society, and across the regions
Thirdly, we need to maintain a threshold of decency, as we have done for the past three years, and to make sure that nobody gets left behind.
And fourthly, we have to commit ourselves to tolerance and freedom at home, and to promoting Irish values abroad.
Having achieved the goal of exiting the bailout, we must now focus on our next objective, which is full employment. The medium-term economic strategy sets the objective of reduce unemployment to below the eurozone average this year and to below 10% by 2016. By 2020, we aim to return the economy to full employment by increasing employment to 2.1 million, thereby replacing all the jobs lost during the crisis.
In the first instance, we must work to ensure a balanced recovery, doing more to promote the domestic economy. We have made it clear that the Construction Sector has to be a major priority. We cannot go back to the days of the bubble, but the Construction Sector is now operating at well below normal output. The sector has the potential over the next five years to create some 60,000 jobs. And in doing so to provide the houses, the offices, the factories, and the infrastructure that our country needs. In the coming weeks, the Government will finalise our Construction Strategy and we will make impelemtnation of it a core priority for the year ahead.
Despite the crisis, we live in a fast-changing global economy. Technology is creating new products and new economic sectors at a rapid pace. Today, thousands of Irish people work in sectors that didn’t exist ten years ago. The centre of economic gravity is shifting to the East, and billions of new workers and consumers are coming into the global trading system. You can either see those trends as threatening, or as opportunities. The Government is determined that, in the year ahead, we will do more to lay the foundations for the future prosperity of our country.
We will expand the network of Embassies and Consulates abroad, and we will enhance the staffing of Enterprise Ireland in key markets. Following the review of the Export Trade Strategy, we will redouble our efforts to open up new opportunities for Irish exporters in priority markets, and we will continue to work for greater co-ordination through the local market teams. It is not often appreciated that the diplomatic corps are often the first ‘boots on the ground’, when it comes to opening up new markets to Irish firms. In January I announced the opening of new mission and consulates in a number of markets, including further development of our presence in the US, reconfiguration of our approach in Africa, and new missions to emerging markets such as Indonesia.
But it is not enough for us to open up new markets. We have to develop the companies that can create new products and services to sell into those markets. That is why the action plan on jobs has a particular focus on facilitating new start-ups, and on assisting firms to make the transition from focusing on the domestic economy, to exporting products overseas.
New firms and new sectors need finance. The Government has already established NewEra and the Strategic Investment Fund on an administrative basis. In the coming weeks, we will bring forward legislation to but both entities on a Statutory footing. We will be putting 6 billion of the State’s resources into the ISIF, with the task of investing in areas which are of strategic significance to the economy. We will also work to implement the proposals in the medium term economic strategy on credit availability, including both bank and non-bank finance. As part of that approach, we are hopeful that the ISIF will be able to work with German Bank KfW to enhance the flow of credit to Irish SMEs.
The prosperity that we seek must be sustainable, but it must also be shared. Across the world, Ireland has been noted for the fact that social solidarity and industrial peace have been hallmarks of the way that we have tackled the crisis. They must also be built into the design of the Irish economy that emerges from the ashes of the crisis. Already the Government has embarked on a far reaching reform of the social welfare and training systems that we have called Pathways to Work. The fundamental principle of our reform is that everyone should have the opportunity to learn and work in our society. The first day of unemployment, should be the first day of a journey back to work, through training eduation and work experience. In the year ahead, we will continue to roll out Intreo offices, and in the next few weeks we will publish the first ever five-year strategy for the Further Education and Training system which will prioritise re-training the unemployed to take up opportunities of economic recovery.
We will also continue to work to address the question of high personal debt, which is a burden that continues to weigh in thousands of families. We have already made enormous changes in the regime for dealing with personal insolvency, but we have to keep working to address this problem. In the coming months, we will monitor the extent to which banks are meeting their mortgage arrears targets, and we will not let up until this problem is addressed.
The problem of personal debt is just one manifestation of an economy where people have seen a dramatic reduction in their living standards. For the Labour Party higher living standards and a better quality of life for working people is at very heart of our politics. What we have learned in the past few years is that higher living standards have to be built on firm foundations.
It is important that we maintain an atmosphere of industrial peace, and an industrial relations structure where issues can be resolved through discussion and negotiation.
To that end, the Government is bringing through legislation to reform the workplace relations institutions and we will shortly bring forward legislation on collective bargaining rights
The Irish people have been through a period of profound economic crisis. But even as we have done so, our society has not stood still. Important social issues cannot be put to one side while the crisis is addressed. That is why we have worked to maintain a threshold of decency, despite the many painful measures which have been necessary to get the economy back on the road to recovery. Restoring the minimum wage, and taking 330,000 people out of the USC net. That is why we are bringing important reforms to make our system of Government more open and transparent, extending the power of the Ombudsman and expanding the scope of Freedom of Information Legislation.
We are working to update our laws to reflect the modern Ireland, including the Protection of Life during pregnancy act, the forthcoming transgender bill, and our determination to put the case for the right to marry to the Irish people.
Ireland’s foreign policy is an essential element of this Government’s work. It is the means by which we promote our values and pursue our interests abroad. Through it, we pursue Ireland’s economic prosperity, and promote peace and security, both at home and in the wider world. Our foreign policy is also a statement of who we are as a people. It projects an image which shapes how others see us and engage with us.
Following our successful EU Presidency last year and the Chairmanship of the OSCE in 2012, and having exited the EU / IMF programme, we have an opportunity to reflect on the future direction of our foreign policy, the values and interests we seeks to promote through it, and how it contributes to achieving Government objectives. That is why, last October, I initiated a review of Ireland’s foreign policy and external relations.
As I said earlier, our external environment, and the international system in which we operate, are experiencing rapid change. The shift of economic and political power and influence from the west to the east and to the south is changing the way the world looks and works. We must keep up with these changes if we are to ensure our continuing prosperity and well-being as a country. Many of today’s challenges, such as cyber security, climate change, and migration, are not defined by borders and regions, but require global solutions. The fast-moving pace of the global economy and the need to keep pace with technological change and innovation are also factors with which we are familiar.
The purpose of the review is to provide an updated statement of Ireland’s foreign policy and external relations, and to identify a series of recommendations for its conduct.
What will not change, is our clear commitment to our Aid Programme, which we have maintained, despite enormous budgetary pressures. Or our commitment to a foreign policy based on human rights and international law.
Our on-going engagement with Northern Ireland will continue to be central to the work of the Government in the Year ahead. The peace which was hard earned, can never be taken for granted. Northern Ireland is a priority for me, for my department and for the Government. In our contacts with the British Government, and with political leaders in Northern Ireland, we will continue to stress the importance of their support for full implementation of all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement, including a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, an Irish Language Act and the establishment of a Civic Forum. Implementation of all key provisions is essential to the integrity and balance of the whole.
I want to commend Dr. Richard Haass and Dr. Meghan O’Sullivan for their work with the political parties in Northern Ireland in the lead up to the New Year. I hope that the political parties will be able to build on that work. Their efforts they will have the support of both the Irish and British Governments.
This is a Government that came to office at a time of profound national crisis. We have faced into that crisis, we have refused to run away from it, and we are succeeding in what we have set out to do. No-one claims for a minute that we have achieved everything we set out to do, but our work is continuing. We will face into the coming year with the same determination and commitment to create jobs and restore our economy that has brought us, in the past three years, from crisis to recovery.
Thank You.