The Government was looking to specific sectors such as tourism to generate employment under the terms of the Jobs Initiative, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste said in a joint news conference tonight.
"The Government have inherited an enormous fiscal and economic challenge," Mr Kenny said, and it was meeting that challenge "head-on".
There were 440,000 people unemployed: "That's why the Government have acted so swiftly." That was why the Government had "hit the ground running" and was announcing the Jobs Initiative after ten weeks in office.
The Government was forecasting "a net additional 100,000 jobs by 2015" and they would like to go beyond that if possible.
"The 12.5 per cent corporation tax remains unnegotiable, we have said that now repeatedly and that is the position." Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore said.
"The whole focus of this government's activity and our work is to bring about economic recovery and to get people back to work."
He added: "We committed in the Programme for Government that, in our first 100 days we would introduce a Jobs Initiative: that has been delivered upon today."
The Labour leader described the announcement as "a significant set of proposals amounting to €1.8 billion over a four-year period".
The Initiative was also "focussed" on particular sectors where people could be got into work in the short term.
"One of those is tourism," he said and the Government was conscious that the 2011 tourism season was just starting. There would be a "huge focus" on Ireland, arising from the visits by Queen Elizabeth and President Obama.
"Therefore we have decided to concentrate the reduction in the Vat rate on tourist-related activity in order to generate reduced costs and generate some tourist activity in that area," Mr Kenny said.
Responding to Fianna Fáil's claim that the pension levy was "a smash and grab raid on the savings of ordinary people", Mr Kenny said: "The pensions referred to here were built up with massive tax reliefs over the years and most of them are involved in overseas assets.
"In respect of the claims made by the Fianna Fail party, I would remind you that they increased Deposit Interest Retention Tax (Dirt) to 25 per cent at one stage.
"This 0.6 per cent is a very small percentage which is designed specifically to focus on the question of the lives and the concerns of the 440,000 people who are on the unemployment register."
Asked what would be the actual number of new jobs created under this Initiative, Mr Kenny said: "It's impossible to put a figure on the extent of jobs that can be created through a resurgence of confidence."
For example, he said, there would be "a thousand international media" coming here for the Queen Elizabeth and Obama visits and an "unknown extent of investment in terms of tourism" would flow from those.