Nearly two and a half years ago, this Government took office with the hopes and dreams of a nation behind it. Like some great prophet, the Taoiseach announced that he was entering into a covenant with the Irish people. Maybe we should have spotted, even then, the delusions he had about what exactly his role would be. Since the Government was formed, however, the Taoiseach has betrayed the hopes and dreams of the Irish people.

You must be joking.

The Taoiseach has failed to keep faith with the promises he made and the defined mandate on which the Government was elected.

Is this a question or a party political speech?

The Deputy has two minutes. Please allow him to continue without interruption.

I wonder if the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, is waiting to milk another cow. He has his hands out there.

It is like an oration at the grave of O'Donovan Rossa.

Order, please.

You will be like that very soon, at a graveside. The Government has failed to keep the promises it made. Hardly any group has suffered more from those betrayals than the young people of our country. Emigration rates have continued to rise, not just annually but also monthly and weekly. Over a quarter of Irish households have seen a close family member emigrate in the past two years.

The Deputy is not adhering to the full stops in his script.

That is the first time in two years that I have heard Deputy Bannon speak.

Can we have order, please?

Empty vessels make most noise.

Turn down the volume control.

When he goes back to Longford, he will get his answers from the people he promised on the pro-life issue.

The Taoiseach's so-called covenant has failed to prevent us from losing an entire generation of our young people. This week, the Taoiseach spoke eloquently about Ireland's EU Presidency. I compliment him on his six months in charge but he said the high levels of youth unemployment across Europe are an abomination. He said that on his watch young people would not be locked out of the future. Those are hollow words, indeed.

Who wrote the Deputy's script?

Who is the Taoiseach trying to cod? What hope can any young person have that the Taoiseach or the Government will be able to deliver on this grand promise? Ireland has almost the highest youth unemployment rate in western Europe with up to one in four young people aged 17 to 25 jobless and one in three men unemployed.

I ask the Deputy to conclude.

I am not being allowed to continue.

I am watching the clock.

I know the truth is bitter but it should not be that hard to sit on. I am entitled to ask a question, am I not?

Yes. Please ask a question.

Go raibh maith agat.

Could we have silence, please?

The pizza boy is back. Will the Minister give a commitment today and demonstrate his seriousness in tackling this issue by bringing to the Taoiseach a proposal to create an office with the sole responsibility to target youth unemployment? Will the Government - you are all wise guys there, as well - consider measures similar to those recently introduced in Italy whereby employers receive a tax-break for offering young people under 30 permanent contracts?

Well done, Mattie.

First of all, I acknowledge that we inherited an economy that was in an extraordinary situation.

That is the past.

No, that is not the past.

That was before Mattie jumped ship.

The economy we inherited was losing 90,000 jobs per year.

I want order for the reply, please. The Minister has the floor.

I am happy to stay all day but I would like to get a chance to answer the question. The truth is that we inherited an economy that was losing 90,000 jobs per year. That is 7,000 jobs per month. The latest CSO figures show that we have added 20,000 jobs in the last 12 months. In respect of the private sector, we are adding 2,000 jobs per month. That is a dramatic transformation. If one looks at what is happening beneath that, one will find that the IDA has had the best two years in a decade and Enterprise Ireland has had its best year in five years. There is a real transition going on in our economy in certain sectors which we discussed earlier. Part of the domestic banking sector continues to have problems but we are seeing the emergence of new strong sectors. That is ultimately the response to the challenge of emigration and youth unemployment.

We need to create more employment and the Government has put in place a number of innovative approaches to deal with this. We have done it through our action plan for jobs, the strategic investment fund and our ability to find innovative ways of funding stimulus at a time when we cannot use conventional borrowing. That is the way in which we will create new employment and deal with the scourge of emigration.

In respect of youth unemployment, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, has set this as a very high priority. She has successfully negotiated the agreement at European level to make this a top priority for Europe. Her agreement will now release €6 billion in funding for youth employment initiatives across the EU. We will also be developing that.

As regards the Deputy's specific suggestion, this month the Minister, Deputy Burton, will be announcing a new scheme whereby an employer can take on a person who has been out of work for 12 months and get a subsidy of €72 per week which will be paid monthly in arrears. That is a straightforward cash support to help businesses which are in a position to recruit to take people off the dole.

There are a lot of initiatives going on precisely to deal with the challenge the Deputy has set. It is, and remains, the Government's firm purpose to deal with the employment crisis. That is what gets us up in the morning every day. That is what drives Ministers each day to seek to resolve this matter, which is the central crisis for the economy.

If that is the best that Ministers can do, they should all stay in bed in the morning.

Hear, hear.

What people want are sustainable long-term jobs, of which the Minister promised 70,000. Despite this continuous mantra about the last Government, the Minister saw the books before he came into office. He sought the books, got them and knew the situation.

It did not change them.

We all know that the live register numbers have fallen due to FÁS and JobBridge training programmes, as well as the back-to-education scheme.

Is the Deputy against them?

Nobody ever employed anybody by offering €72 after somebody is taken on for 12 months because it is a pittance. The Minister does not understand what makes employers tick. The sooner the Minister and his team of advisers get down and dirty, and understand what makes people employ staff, the better. The Minister does not understand what makes people want to create jobs, wealth and pay their taxes. Despite the Minister's best efforts and the grandiose plans he is talking about, efforts must be mobilised around the shared objective of getting young people jobs. Those were the Taoiseach's words in Europe.

How can we take this Government seriously when it cannot even deal with relatively straightforward issues such as applications for third level education grants? The SUSI system is a shambles. Those involved are people who want to educate themselves in order to obtain work or set up a business.

Thank you Deputy.

I am not yet finished. The Government has broken all of its promises. The Taoiseach reneged on his commitment to the families of those killed in the Omagh bomb and to the Stardust victims' committee. He told them that they would never have to make another telephone call but they have not heard from him in two and a half years. The Government has also broken its promise on the late Fr. Niall Molloy issue. These are simple issues, which have nothing to do with the economy, on which the Government has reneged on its promises. This is a Government of broken promises. The young people of this country will never forgive it. We cannot allow youth unemployment to continually increase.

Deputy McGrath is very hard on us.

The Deputy should read his script.

Members of the Government backbenches can laugh all they like. However, they can hide but they cannot run.

The saying is "You can run but you cannot hide".

The Government can neither run nor hide.

Thank you Deputy.

There is no place to run.

Run like a rabbit.

Run like a rabbit in the fog lights.

Stick to the script.

A question please, Deputy.

It is a matter of trust. The young have lost trust in this Government. Why is it that one in four of our young people have to leave our shores? It is a tragedy. Will the Government establish a specific ministry to deal with this issue? The time for talking and rubbing hands has long past. There are too many Departments dealing with this issue. We need a Minister who is focused and dedicated to bringing an end to youth unemployment.

Hear, hear.

It is difficult to know where to start.

That is what happened, the Government never started.

The Deputy said that the Government does not understand enterprise. The truth is that enterprise and predominantly small business have created 25,000 net new jobs in the past 12 months.

In spite of the Government.

Allow the Minister to respond please.

Most of those jobs were in the export sector. Government support through the IDA-Enterprise Ireland is at the heart of development of this sector. I defy anyone to criticise the work of those agencies whose budgets have been protected. Even in this difficult time we have protected budgets to support enterprise, the value of which is reflected in the 25,000 net additional people at work in the private sector.

How many full-time jobs have been created?

The Deputy asked what is happening on the live register. The number of people on the live register has decreased for the twelfth month in a row.

Pat yourselves on the back?

The percentage of people unemployed has also reduced from 15% to 13.6%. While that is progress, it is not enough progress. We need to do more in this space.

The Irish population in Australia has increased by 30%.

Some €2.5 million of new funding has been made available through Government agencies to small and medium enterprise. These is new funding to support expansion of the type of enterprises of which the Deputy spoke. As rightly acknowledged by the Deputy, some 60% of those who engaged in JobBridge have been retained in employment.

That is just papering over the cracks.

The new scheme will provide people in business with the opportunity to recruit directly from the live register and get an upfront cash subsidy.

What about SUSI?

These are new ideas that are showing results. The Deputy wants to remain in the time warp of criticising rather than putting forward worthwhile solutions. His only suggestion is that we create a new ministry. What we need is policies that work. That is what this Government is developing. We are seeing results in terms of the number of enterprises recruiting. That is the ultimate solution to this challenge.

Live horse and you'll get grass.