asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will outline the Government's strategy for industrial job creation.

The Government's strategy for industrial job creation is set out in the Programme for National Recovery which was published on 9 October 1987.

The objective of Government policy will be the creation of approximately 20,000 extra jobs in manufacturing industry on average each year over the next ten years with the actual provision accelerating as the programme policies take effect.

The programme for employment creation is being developed on a sectoral basis and will build upon the more competitive environment generated by the Government's fiscal and monetary policies. This sectoral development strategy will be based on:

—market research at home and abroad which will indentify development and employment potential;

—our natural resources;

—the new advanced skills in our workforce and

—the achievement of increased market share in selected sectors and markets.

with specific and realistic job opportunities being identified for each sector. Sectoral job opportunities covering such sectors as food, horticulture, tourism, marine and manufacturing, have already been identified and are detailed in the programme.

Other aspects of the policy being undertaken to expand and diversify our industrial base include:

—the rationalisation of the industrial promotion agencies;

—giving greater priority to the market and technological orientation of indigenous industry through the expansion and growth of selected Irish companies firmly rooted in the economy;

—a shift in resources from the support of fixed asset investment to the upgrading of marketing, product development, R and D and management expertise;

—the linking of State support to the achievement of specific employment targets;

—the establishment of trading houses to provide a new and effective export service to indigenous firms to help them increase their share of overseas markets;

—the establishment of Ministerial Offices for Trade and Marketing and for Science and Technology; and

—the promotion of investment from overseas designed to give greater emphasis to the integration of such investments into the Irish economy.

Will the Minister agree that the job proposals in the plan he referred to are purely aspirational? For example, the plan states that the beef industry should provide 1,000 new jobs over five years and that in regard to toolmaking output can be increased to around £20 million giving 1,000 extra jobs. There is no reference in the plan as to how those jobs can be created. In the course of his reply the Minister referred to the "competitive environment". I wonder if he will agree that the creation of the environment he mentioned — the former Government mentioned the environment for the four years they were in office — to induce manufacturing to provide extra jobs causes job losses? Will he agree that that has occurred consistently in recent years and that, on his own estimate, it will result in a further 14,000 job losses in the coming year? When does the Minister consider that job creation will begin?

I do not propose to comment on what the previous Government talked about for four and a half years. I will confine my comments to what we have talked about and achieved since we came into Government in the important and critical area of creating the right environment for investment. As the House will be well aware, interest rates have come down by 5 percentage points since we came into office. At the level of interest rates previously existing, it was unrealistic to expect investors to invest. There are very few businesses here of which I would be aware that could borrow money at the then interest rates and hope to be able to make repayment on any investment.

What about the jobs?

The environment has to be right for investment; otherwise you would not get jobs. This is what has been wrong with this country for far too long. You start at the base. You put in a foundation before you build a house. That is exactly what has been taking place over the last seven months since this Government come into office.

£15 million.

Deputy McCartan should cease interupting.

The economy is already improving. The inflation rate is down by at least 3 per cent, which was part of the last Government's strategy. That gives a competitive edge to our exporters in their main trading market of the UK. Those are the economic factors that matter. I am talking about sustainable jobs. If you want to create phantom jobs, here today and gone tomorrow, that is a different situation. We are not in that business any more, but in that of creating sustainable jobs, building the foundation to create those jobs. That is what it is all about. If the Deputy refers to the various sectors which this Government have identified for growth and investment, he will see that the jobs there reastically can and will be created within the sectors as enunciated in the programme.

It is amusing to hear a Fianna Fáil Minister talking about putting down a foundation when one thinks of what that Government did in 1977. That was some foundation. Did I hear the Minister listing as one of their achievements the establishment of a Department of Trade and Marketing?

The Office of Trade and Marketing.

Just the office? He is in the little office? What is the Minister of State, Deputy Brennan, doing besides trying to upstage the Minister himself?

The Deputy is underestimating me.

Has he any other role?

He is smaller than I am and would have a few ladders to climb to get up to me.

Exactly. But what about the Department of Agriculture?

Could I remind the Deputy, when he talks about building foundations, that if we had not had to face the huge task of trying to service the National Debt which doubled in the four and a half years that he and his party and other colleagues were in Government, we would have had a much smaller job to do. We would have built a foundation much more quidkly. We are getting on with creating real jobs.

Would the Minister like to go back to his Government's performance in 1977?

During the last four and a half years, the National Debt was doubled. That is why income tax is so high and why we are not getting development. Let the Deputy not try to wash that fact away. The history books will record that his Government have been the worst in the history of this State.

I call Deputy Cullen.

Does the Minister not agree——

Oil at $39 a barrel for crude oil then, but $13 in 1977.