The Government’s jobs initiative is to be announced in the Dáil next Tuesday by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan. Fine Gael and Labour promised a stimulus package to generate employment in the coalition’s first 100 days in office, though it is to be “fiscally neutral”, meaning the measures announced will be balanced by either spending cuts or tax increases.
The initiative is expected to reverse the cut in the minimum wage and to abolish the travel tax for air passengers. It is also anticipated that there will be a reduction in the rate
of employers’ PRSI and the introduction of a partial loan-guarantee scheme.
As part of the initiative Taoiseach Enda Kenny was in New York on Thursday to invite the Irish diaspora to participate in a job-creation scheme. Prospective employers will receive a finder’s fee of €3,000 for every job resulting from the project that is still in existence two years on.
Pressure has been building, from the likes of the Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation and the Irish Tax Institute, to concentrate on reforming State employment services and the welfare system, as well as on helping Irish businesses gain access to private capital.
Kenny warned that the initiative would not immediately solve the State’s unemployment problem but provide an injection into the economy that would stimulate growth, jobs and opportunities.
“I do hope, in the debate that will ensue, people will live in the world of reality and not in theory as to what we can actually do,” he said.