Speech by the Taoiseach, Mr. Enda Kenny T.D. Launch of Pathways to Work 2015 Italian Room – Government Buildings

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen.

Welcome to the launch of the latest update to the Government’s Pathway’s to Work plan to get Ireland working again.

Since entering office the Tánaiste and I have made it our mission to make the changes necessary to bring about a jobs recovery.

This has meant the complete overhaul of our employment services and the roll out of new supports nationwide.

Through the Pathways to Work strategy and the Action Plan for Jobs we have seen a lot of positive progress on the jobs front.

Since the launch of both we have seen the creation of an additional 70,000 new jobs in the country resulting in the unemployment rate dropping to 11.1%, the lowest in 5 years. These are real jobs in real businesses – while Government sponsored schemes such as Job Bridge and Tús have proved vital stepping stones for helping the young and inexperienced into the workforce, they account for less than one in ten of the jobs added to the economy over this period.

With consumer confidence on the rise and the economy growing strongly this year we expect to make further progress on job creation.

But we are not blind to the serious risks we face as a country.

We still have enormous challenges in creating new jobs while getting long term unemployed and youth unemployed into jobs.

There are still 185,000 people out of work for longer than a year, and 315,000 people who left our shores in recent years to find opportunities elsewhere.

Our goal remains to replace all the jobs that were lost during the recession, delivering full employment by 2020.

This goal is eminently achievable if we stick to our plan for securing and strengthening the recovery:
· first, to maintain international confidence and investment in Ireland through tight control of the public finances;
· second, targeted tax and welfare reform initiatives that boost employment levels; and
· third, complete the ongoing repair of the financial system to ensure adequate credit availability for investment.

The overriding objective of next week’s Budget is to secure and accelerate recovery.

Building on the success of the VAT cut for the hospitality and the tourism sectors, our plan to reduce tax rates on low- and middle-income earners is designed to create an additional 15,000 jobs by 2018, over and above our existing plans.

The Pathways to Work plan for 2015 launched here today also keeps that central focus on reducing unemployment, and in particular helping the long term unemployed and youth unemployed.

The development of a case-officer model for engagement with jobseekers has been one of the best innovations introduced.

However, as we had to build this model from the ground up in a time of very tight resources there is only one case officer for every 500 jobseekers.

This will change radically next year with the roll out of JobPath where we will use the expertise of outside organisations to target long term unemployed jobseekers. This will see one case worker for every 200 jobseekers which is more in line with international norms.

We are planning for 100,000 long term unemployed to have active engagements with case officers by the end of next year.

At this time I’d also like to pay tribute to the ongoing support of Martin Murphy and the Labour Market Council.

Last week the Tánaiste launched one of its initiatives – an Employment and Youth Activation Charter where employers who signed up make a commitment that at least 50% of candidates considered for interview will be taken from the Live Register. The aim is to have 200 of the biggest employers in Ireland signed up by next summer.

To ensure that work always pays we are also introducing a number of key reforms.
To replace the welfare trap caused by rent supplement we are now rolling out the Housing Assistance Payment after a successful pilot in Limerick.

Improving incentives for families to return to work will also be critical. Recent figures indicate that 60% of unemployed adults with children have an income replacement rate of over 70%, meaning that they have a poor financial incentive to work.

The Budget next week will address this by introducing a new Working Family bonus whereby those moving from welfare to work will temporarily retain the child related portion of their welfare payment.

In our approach to the management of the economy we will make sure that recovery to date will not be threatened or wasted and that the people can trust us to make the necessary decisions to build a strong economy that can provide quality jobs for our people.

This is a responsible approach to fixing our economy.

It took many years of careful management of the national finances and the economy in order to reach this position.

Progress is hard won and can be easily lost.

The Pathways to Work strategy launched today is an example of long overdue reform that is necessary due to successive Governments taking the easy option out.

It will be complementary to our Budget next week and will represent another stepping stone in securing Ireland’s recovery.

The Tánaiste will now say a few words.