Cowen insists worst is over for economy
The economy has reached a turning point with the worst now over, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said today.
In an address to a Fianna Fáil meeting in Athlone, Mr Cowen said the challenge is to now move with confidence and ambition into a new phase of recovery and renewal.
The Taoiseach said Ireland was returning to growth and seeing an upturn in confidence.
“While we face another difficult budget ahead, for the Irish economy the worst is now over,” he said.
Mr Cowen said creating jobs was the backbone of the Government’s economic strategy.
He said Enterprise Ireland was working to create 40,000 jobs over the next five years, which would lead to an additional 28,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.
“The truth is that the purpose of our entire economic strategy is to sustain and generate jobs,” he said.
“Those who say we can save jobs while allowing financial institutions to fall and fail are closing their eyes to the most basic necessities of a market economy like ours, that is built on international trade and sustained by the free flow of capital and commerce.”
Mr Cowen set out a number of areas where the Government’s economic renewal plan was working to boost employment.
He said it was essential to get both confidence and credit flowing again.
“Our first route to job creation relates strongly to the importance of confidence – confidence to lend, confidence to spend, confidence to invest, confidence to hire,” the Taoiseach said.
He said many of the 40,000 jobs being created by Enterprise Ireland would come from the small business sector.
The Taoiseach said the Government was spending nearly 40 billion euro in infrastructure to generate jobs in construction projects.
He stressed the country’s 12.5% corporation tax would not be increased and would be key to attracting foreign direct investment.
Mr Cowen said the Government was not promising overnight solutions but said it was, as a priority, tackling the issue by improving competitiveness, protecting existing jobs and improving conditions for new jobs to be created.
“When hit with an international financial crisis of this magnitude, jobs cannot be created in a vacuum,” he said.
“Long-term sustainable job creation can only come about by putting our public finances back in order, fixing the banking system and pricing ourselves back into the markets we serve.
“Ireland is doing those things and we must persevere with this strategy for recovery on the hard road back to prosperity and an expanding economy again.”
