Taoiseach confident of promissory note deal
Speaking at the Government’s fourth progress report on its ‘Action Plan for Jobs’, Mr Kenny said it was very important that Ireland secures a deal on the bank debt.
“It would greatly ease our debt payments and help us exit the EU/IMF programme at the end of this year. We continue these negotiations, which are technical and complex.”
Last year the Government launched the ‘Action Plan for Jobs’ with the aim of creating 100,000 jobs by 2016.
Roughly 12,000 jobs were created last year. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, acknowledged that the Government faced a huge challenged in meeting its target. “We have a lot of work to do this year.”
The jobs initiative also pledged to introduce 270 separate policy measures in an effort to improve the business environment and stoke private sector activity.
“Clearly we are not satisfied that 21 actions that were due for delivery in 2012 have not been delivered on time,” said the Taoiseach.
Most of the policy measures focused on supports for export companies; job activation programmes; improving access to credit; improving the skills base and reducing public sector bureaucracy.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said that over the past year there has been a huge improvement in the country’s reputation. “It is accepted as a good country to invest.”
The Taoiseach said that recent spate of job losses in the retail sector reflected an economy in transition. However, the Government could not introduce blanket legislation on upward only rent reviews as this was a “constitutional issue,” added Mr Kenny.
He hoped that landlords would deal with tenants on a case-by-case basis.
Mr Bruton said that this initiative was never going to be a “big bang” approach to solving the unemployment problem.
Instead it would be a slow process that involved a number of different structural reforms.
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