TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowenhas signalled a "very, very significant" capital investment programme in the forthcoming budget which would boost the construction industry. He said it would include the schools building and refurbishing programme.

Mr Cowen told the Dáil that €2.3 billion had been invested in schools with a €4.5 billion commitment in the present development plan.

There were now 40,000 pupils in new schools and a further 45,000 in refurbished schools or those where classrooms had been added.

"And that can continue," he said. "And therefore there will be a certain degree of offset from the public capital programme for the decline in private-sector activity, particularly in the construction business although it won't offset it totally."

The Taoiseach was responding to Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, who claimed the Government had adopted a "business as usual" attitude with no new initiatives to deal with rising unemployment.

"The scale of what has been happening - I don't think the Government has fully grasped this."

He said that "what people losing their jobs are asking is whether they're likely to get work again? What steps are the Government taking to find, source and encourage new jobs?"

They knew what was happening the construction industry. It was now in the professions, where young solicitors, architects and engineers were losing jobs.

Mr Cowen said, however, that the "whole question of how we can address all of those issues is an ongoing situation, but one that will begin when the budget is announced by the Minister for Finance".

The Government would "continue by prioritising those areas that will give us an economic return more quickly than other projects, major investments in a public capital programme, which is very, very significant".

Inward investment in Ireland in the first nine months of the year was ahead of 2007 and "that's a fair achievement".