TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has announced a trade and investment plan that he said would generate 150,000 jobs and boost exports from indigenous companies by one-third by 2015.
Mr Cowen and four Government Ministers yesterday launched Trading and Investing in a Smart Economy which sets out targets for Irish exports, tourism and foreign-direct investment (FDI) over the next five years.
The Government said it would create 150,000 direct jobs and a further 150,000 in spin-off jobs.
However, its document was described as “nothing more than a set of rehashed, reheated old policies” by Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Richard Bruton, and as “high on ambitious targets and very short on specifics” by Labour Party enterprise spokesman Willie Penrose.
The job numbers are predicated on IDA Ireland securing an additional 780 investment projects by the end of 2015, of which it is hoped a fifth will be sourced from emerging economies. This will add 75,000 jobs, according to the report.
Indigenous companies assisted by Enterprise Ireland will create 60,000 jobs if they increase the value of their exports from €13 billion to €17 billion. It is also hoped the number of people employed in the tourism industry will rise by 15,000 as the volume of overseas visitors is restored to its 2007 peak of eight million.
“We need to strategise in a new way and we’re doing that,” the Taoiseach said at Enterprise Ireland’s headquarters in Dublin.
As part of renewed emphasis on developing business ties with emerging economies, there will be more high-level trade missions and “a greater focus” on the languages, culture and history of emerging nations in the education system, Mr Cowen said. The Department of Justice and Law Reform will establish a new consultative group on the visa regime.
The document also outlines the establishment of a Foreign Trade Council, which will be chaired by Minister of State for Trade and Commerce Billy Kelleher and will comprise the chief executives of various State agencies and Government departments.
The council will meet “at least twice annually” and will oversee the production of annual reports by the Irish ambassador or head of mission in each “priority” overseas market. Mr Kelleher will also report to the Government once a year, setting out the council’s recommendations.
The Foreign Trade Council will not be granted a budget, a spokesman for Mr O’Keeffe said.
“These recommendations are not budget sensitive. There’s no additional expenditure. They are cost neutral and drawn from existing expenditures,” the spokesman said. However, he added that there were “new jobs”.
Employers’ group Ibec expressed disappointment that there were no plans to include a private business representative on the Foreign Trade Council.
Ibec head of international trade and transport policy Pat Ivory said overhauling the visa process for non-EU tourists and business travellers to Ireland had to be addressed.
Mr Kelleher accused Mr Bruton of cynicism after the Fine Gael enterprise spokesman said the document was “about media management, not economic management” and was another “panic announcement” that could not hide the lack of a long-term strategy to tackle the jobs crisis.
“Whenever the Government wants to create the illusion it is doing something about a problem, it sets up another new agency,” Mr Bruton said.
Mr Penrose said Ireland’s unemployed would “suspect, with some justification, that these initiatives are more about an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of this discredited Government than about actually getting people back to work”.
