FINE GAEL says it will publish a “jobs budget” within 100 days of entering government.
Party leader Enda Kenny and finance spokesman Michael Noonan say the party will set out an immediately deliverable jobs policy in early July that it claims can create 100,000 new jobs by 2015.
Mr Noonan said yesterday that the jobs budget would have a cost of €381 million in 2011, which will be funded by the early payment of the first tranche of the 0.5 per cent levy on pension funds, which the party has said it will implement if elected to government.
He said that in government, Fine Gael would move to have the levy payable by autumn, a measure that would raise the required funds for the stimulus.
They were speaking at the launch of the party’s youth manifesto in the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin yesterday.
Fine Gael has outlined a strategy to boost employment prospects for young people. The plan includes: a cut in the lower VAT rate to 12 per cent; a halving of the lower 8.5 per cent employer PRSI rate for a year; a VAT exemption for service companies that export 90 per cent of their output; the abolition of the travel tax if airlines reach certain prescribed targets on passenger numbers and internships for 5,000 college graduates.
Mr Kenny said his party’s plan was “forensically realistic” and would provide real hope for “those whose long-term prospects were ignored in an avalanche of Government greed”.
He said the jobs would help the construction and retail sectors.
In a more detailed outline of the policies, Mr Noonan said the tourism industry was one with a big potential for employment without the need for massive investment.
“If you look at the tourist industry, it does not require any investment. We have five-star hotels, self-catering homes, a motorway network and golf courses.
“What it requires is tourists. Working on travel taxes and doing the deal with Aer Lingus and Ryanair can help bring tourists back. Ireland is rating very highly as a tourist destination.”
Mr Kenny told the event – which was attended by dozens of members of the party’s youth wing – that unemployment had hit the young the hardest.
“One in three men under 25 is unemployed,” he said, adding that 55 per cent of all job losses were among those aged 25 and under.
Mr Kenny was also asked about the pension arrangements arising from the four-year period he worked as a teacher in the early 1970s.
When asked about the accuracy of figures suggested by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin that he was due a tax-free lump sum of €100,000 and an annual pension of €30,000, Mr Kenny responded that he did not know the lump sum or the pension to which he would have been entitled had he not decided to forgo it last Sunday.
He also said he did not know how much he had contributed to the pension scheme over the years.
Under an agreement worked out between teacher unions and the Department of Education, TDs and Senators on secondment from teaching positions were allowed to retain their posts indefinitely and also to retain their full pension rights.
This has led to an anomalous situation where Oireachtas members who had not taught in decades collected a full teacher’s pension in addition to their Oireachtas and ministerial pensions.
