Senator Tony Mulcahy

Mulcahy welcomes jobs creation figures

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Clare Senator Tony Mulcahy has welcomed the announcement by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) that 58,000 jobs have been created in the private sector in the last 12 months.

The Fine Gael Senator said the figures represented a “marked turnaround” from the “jobs haemorrhaging legacy” of the last Fianna Fail led Government.

He added that the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs is creating the conditions whereby almost 5,000 jobs per month are now being created in Ireland.

“The announcement that almost 5,000 jobs a month are being created is hugely encouraging and shows that this Government’s plan to get Ireland working again is bearing fruit. The creation of 58,000 jobs in the last year is a welcome change to the situation under the last Government where 80,000 jobs per year were being lost in the private sector,” he noted.

Senator Mulcahy continued: “This CSO report takes us up to the end of September 2013. The pro-jobs Budget announced on October 15th by Minister Noonan contained measures which will, I believe, further incentivise small and large businesses to create jobs in Ireland in 2014. The 25 separate measures that support job creation as part of a €500 million pro-jobs package in Budget 2014 will help us build on the excellent progress being made in encouraging investment in Ireland and tackling our unemployment problem.

“The Home Renovation Incentive Scheme is a particularly positive initiative, which will allow homeowners to claim back VAT on improvements carried out on their homes. This will generate significant amounts of work for registered tradesmen and contractors and, I believe, create jobs for people who were laid off when the construction sector collapsed under the last Government.

“The retention of the 9% VAT rate is hugely welcome for the tourism sector, which has enjoyed a surge in visitor numbers over the last two years. The lower VAT rate was originally introduced as a temporary measure, but Minister Noonan has taken the very pragmatic decision to maintain the low rate in a bid to sustain and further encourage growth in this area.

“The scrapping of the airline tax in last month’s budget has already resulted in the introduction of new routes and extra flights on existing routes to Shannon as well as Dublin and Knock Airports. This will create more jobs and bring more money into those regions in 2014. Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary, has directly credited the scrapping of the airline tax for the creation of these new routes.

“The unemployment rate has dropped from 13.6% to 12.8% between July and September of this year. While we still have a long way to go, these figures show that we are moving firmly in the right direction. Ireland has experienced a fall in unemployment for the last 16 months in a row and is about to regain its economic independence by exiting the bailout. With a budget in place for next year which will further incentivise job creation, I firmly believe that we are heading in the right direction,” concluded Senator Mulcahy.