Hear, hear.

There are too many gangsters.

The consequences are the figures provided to us for the live register. Although the Taoiseach has not told us the figure, the January statistic was in the order of 436,000 and he has indicated the current figure is around the same. The Taoiseach has said the matter has stabilised. I will tell him how stable it is for somebody who has lost a job. Some 340 people on average have lost their job every day since the Taoiseach entered office.

How many people have left the country?

That is the official figure and does not include immigrants who have returned to their country of origin or young people who have given up hope in this country and gone to Australia or somewhere else in the hope of finding a job and economic future for themselves. There is no stability in being unemployed, especially when people cannot get a social welfare payment or a reply from the social welfare office when making an inquiry about a claim.

That is right. Nobody is doing anything about it either.

That is the current position because the Government has become dysfunctional not only as regards the economy and the provision of employment but even now in the administration of normal public services. We have read in the newspapers that there is a concern in the Government about jobs, which is correct. The Greens are concerned about jobs — their own jobs — but that is not what the people of the country are looking for.

They are learning to dance.

The Taoiseach is thinking about reshuffling his Cabinet and juggling the jobs in Government. We have read that there will be major changes in the composition of the Government.

We will find out on Twitter.

I will ask one straight question because we are talking about employment and jobs. Will the Taoiseach, as part of that reshuffle, appoint a Minister with a dedicated responsibility for employment? Will he establish a new Department of Employment that will function and drive some employment strategy? The Labour Party made a proposal before the budget for the establishment of a jobs fund and a range of labour market interventions that would seek to get people back to work or at least access to the education and training they require to be better able to pick up employment and avail of business opportunities into the future. Will the Taoiseach at least do that much soon? There is an urgency in the employment issue and getting people back to work. From the Taoiseach's earlier reply, neither he nor any member of Government appears to appreciate or understand this urgency.

I refute once again the usual blandishments——

Continue to refute.

——from Deputy Gilmore on the reasons for the decisions taken on 29 and 30 September 2008. Had Anglo Irish Bank not been included in the State guarantee, there would inevitably have been a run on the bank as depositors and other providers of funds to Anglo Irish Bank would have rushed to withdraw their funds from that institution. The bank could not have met those immediate demands and would have collapsed. There would have been instant contagion to other banks and confidence in the entire Irish banking system would have been undermined.

How?

Economists have known since the Great Depression of the 1930s——

Blame everybody else.

That is the Taoiseach's interpretation.

——that the meltdown of a large bank can have catastrophic effects on the economy and citizens' welfare. Anglo Irish Bank was much larger relative to the Irish economy than Lehman Brothers was relative to the US economy.

No.

The disorderly failure of Lehman Brothers brought the global financial system to its knees and the disorderly failure of Anglo Irish Bank two weeks later would have had the same effect on the entire Irish banking system. Those are the facts.

They are not.

More interpretation.

This was about ensuring we had a banking system that could function. Despite the opposition to NAMA, the purpose of which I described yesterday, when it becomes operational it will provide us with the best means of providing access to funding at affordable prices——

Does the Taoiseach really believe that?

——for consumers and businesses. Those are the facts of the situation, and despite all of the contentions to the contrary, the Government is determined to make sure that we effectively restructure the banking system to bring that about.

This country has an employment strategy and is based on the fact that we must first bring order to our public finances, something that is glazed over by the Opposition, and that we must close the gap between expenditure and income. We have also seen a recent FÁS and ESRI study published that projects the creation of 250,000 jobs between now and 2015.

FÁS?

The IDA indicated what it has done. The Deputy can guff all he likes. When he was Minister for Enterprise and Employment, he relied on the IDA figures and spoke about it as a reputable organisation.

The Taoiseach had to manage that organisation.

It is being managed so well that when foreign investment dropped 30% in every advanced economy in the world, we still managed to bring 125 new projects to this country at a time when the economy contracted by 10.5%. That is what we have been able to achieve in our employment strategy.

A 10.5% contraction in the economy is some achievement.

We had a Private Members' motion last Wednesday, in which the Tánaiste set out in detail the various labour market activation measures that have taken place, including the increased resources being applied for training and activation. Those are the facts, but what is being suggested here is that jobs can be created in a vacuum. The quickest way we can effect recovery and bring growth back to this economy——

Is an election.

——is based on the policy direction that this Government is pursuing. International and domestic independent commentators have confirmed that. That is what we are determined to do.

We can only judge the Government's performance by results. Under the stewardship of the Taoiseach, this country was the first into the recession and will be the last out of it. We are now in the third calendar year of a recession.

Let us look at where the Government's policies have got us. Its banking policy is not working. Credit is not being extended to businesses and they are closing down. I met a hotelier recently whose overdraft facility was cut from €25,000 to €15,000. Will the Taoiseach tell that man that the Government's banking policies are working? Its banking policies are not working because credit is not going to business. As it is not going to businesses, they are closing down and people are losing their jobs. The Government's banking policy is not working because not a single loan has yet been transferred to NAMA. The only thing that is happening with the Government's banking policy is that the clock is ticking all the time against the taxpayer, while the cost of the Government's approach to the banking system rising all the time.

The Government's policy on jobs is not working. We have record levels of unemployment. We have had little or no action on the part of the Government to deal with unemployment. The Taoiseach spoke about the FÁS and ESRI report published this morning, telling us that there will be jobs in 2015.

Between now and 2015.

Young people who are graduating this year will be in their thirties before they see any of those jobs.

The Taoiseach keeps forgetting that he has support across the House for addressing the issue of public finances and reforming the public service.

You must be joking.

Stop muttering. If the shoe was on the other foot, I know exactly the response we would have got. We supported the objectives of the Government to get the deficit down. Both the Labour Party and Fine Gael produced detailed pre-budget proposals. The Taoiseach chose not to run with them, but he should not come back and say that we have not produced constructive proposals, because we have.

His problem with the public finances is that since he became Taoiseach, the size of the deficit has increased by €7 million every day due to the loss of employment. Every job that is lost is costing around €20,000. Jobs have been lost on his watch at the rate of 340 per day. He can do the sums himself. If people are out of work, there is less money in taxes coming into the Government. If people are out of work, they are not spending and sales taxes are down. That is why the Government has a problem with the public finances. The Government's policies have failed to get the real economy moving again, to get businesses up and running again and to get people back into employment. How much longer do people have to tolerate the Taoiseach, the Government and the misery that they are inflicting on those who are losing their jobs and suffering as a result of the collapse under his watch?

How long more will they have to contend with the Deputy's portrayal of the economy to the effect that nothing good was happening here? The fact is that jobs are being created while jobs are being lost.

The Taoiseach is in denial.

I accept that we have seen increased unemployment in net terms. That happens in recessions. The Deputy's party was in Government during recessions, even though he may not have been. The only way we can recover is by improving our competitiveness and getting back into the marketplace to create the goods and services and create the jobs at home. We are pursuing policies that are seeing improvements in our competitiveness.

There has been no support from the other side of the House for what we are doing. Can the Deputy give me one Government initiative that has been supported by his party? He agrees with the objective that expenditure must be reduced, but when it comes to voting on individual items of expenditure, he opposes them. That is fair enough because that is the role of the Opposition. In the meantime, the Government will continue to pursue policies that will bring growth back to this economy, hopefully in the second half of this year.

We are more seriously affected by other countries, because we are a small open economy and our fortunes are very much determined by what happens in the world economy. We must make sure that when the world economy lifts, we are positioned to reap the benefits. The volatility in interest rates affected our exporters' ability to maintain markets, especially in the US and the UK. That is changing as well. We are pursuing policies that will bring about recovery and growth.

The Government has failed.

In the meantime, there is an incessant Opposition that will not support the restructuring of the banking system on any basis because it does not agree with our policy. That is fair enough, but it does not have a credible alternative.

We do.

The Opposition has never had a credible alternative. The Labour Party never supported the State guarantee, while the Fine Gael Party did so.

We did not support cuts to the blind and the disabled, nor did we support the cuts to lower paid public servants.

On the other hand, Deputy Kenny does not want to give any money to Anglo Irish Bank, even if it means writing a cheque for €65 billion as a result, while——

That is infant class stuff.

Bail out the banks and screw the taxpayer.

I am sick and tired of this continuous effort by Deputies to claim that any decision we took was based on something other than what we were advised and based on something other than the national interest. This country was facing into a very serious situation, and I defend what we did on that occasion, because we had to ensure that markets understood that the Government was prepared to back our banking system. Other governments have had to do it since then. We did it then and we are now in the process of restructuring our banks through the NAMA vehicle, which will take those risky assets off the balance sheets so that we can protect and create jobs. How many jobs would have been protected and created had we allowed our banking system to implode?

This is payback time for the Galway tent.