I want to ask the Tánaiste today about the volume of job losses recently. It is destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. I am concerned that some of the losses are coming under the cover of Covid. I am not alone in that regard. All of the changes in banking will rip the heart out of so many rural and urban towns across the State. Ulster Bank's announcement affects 2,800 staff, Bank of Ireland is closing 88 branches affecting 1,400 staff and on top of that, the Kerry Group announcement of the loss of 150 jobs and Aer Lingus's job losses are reaching 600. These are just the jobs we hear about. There is a growing epidemic of job losses in all sectors and small businesses, and not just where we would expect some issues due to Covid.

The Central Statistics Office, CSO, has put the February adjusted unemployment rate at just under 25%, which is more than 330,000 people or one in four workers. The situation is even worse for young people, which is a real concern, with 57% of young people being out of work. This will be a scar on that generation and the body politic, collectively, will have to address it. We have a national crisis and we need to take responsibility in terms of how we are going to get out of this. Before the Tánaiste refers to them, I accept and welcome all of the income supports and business supports that have been put in place. I have, however, a real issue with the fact that Ireland is saying we are only eligible for €853 million from the EU recovery and resilience fund. This simply is not enough. I do not believe it is proportionate or fair. I know we have had a changed economic situation over the past years. Where is our national economic recovery plan? What are we going to do on the redundancies where ICTU has warned of hundreds of thousands of workers who could lose out on redundancy payments because of time spent on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, would not be counted?

Bearing all of this in mind, what is the Government's plan to ensure that some job losses are not being pushed out by some companies using Covid as cover? When will our national economic recovery plan be published? Specifically, what are we going to do to prevent the scarring of a generation of young people, given what they have gone through? Will the Tánaiste make a commitment today that workers who are made redundant will not lose out because of time spent on the PUP?

Many job losses have been announced in recent weeks, which are a deep concerns to all of us. As the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I get notification of many of those, and I am very aware of the real impact it is having on people.

Some of those job losses are directly related to Covid-19, for example, in the airlines the Deputy mentioned. Some are not; they would have happened in any case. I refer to those in banking and those in the Kerry Group, for example, which the Deputy mentioned. In fairness, nobody in those industries, certainly not in the banks and certainly not in the Kerry Group, has pretended they are related to Covid. They are related to restructuring in the case of the Kerry Group and to a change in the way people bank and the way banks operate in regard to banking.

In terms of the policy of Government, it is three-fold. First, it is to save as many jobs and businesses that we can, particularly those businesses that are viable but vulnerable. We have put €11 billion into that already if we take the employment wage subsidy scheme, the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRISS, and the pandemic unemployment payment. A a huge amount of money is borrowed but it is the right decision to borrow that money to save as many jobs and businesses as possible.

The second is to continue to create new jobs. What is encouraging at the moment is that there is still a very good pipeline of new jobs being created, particularly in areas like technology, digital, pharmaceutical, medical devices, distribution and transport. IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, EI, under my remit, are driving forward that jobs agenda.

The third is offering training and educational opportunities to as many people as possible to people who may wish to retrain to gain new skills and to the young people the Deputy mentioned. More people will start third level education this year than ever before and from a more diverse set of backgrounds than ever before. The same applies to lifelong learning and further education, which is being driven forward very much by the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris.

In terms of the timeline for the national economic plan, we had initially proposed to do that in January given the effect of the third wave on our country in terms of jobs lost and the effect on the economy. We have put back that. We expect now that it will be in the summer, probably around May or June, but in April we will have the stability programme update, the spring statement, which will be brought in by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. Also in April, we will have the allocations from the €850 million European recovery fund and, hopefully, the €1 billion Brexit fund but that is still under negotiation. We will then have the revised national development plan and the new economic plan, which we expect to have for May or June.

The issue the Deputy raised on redundancy is difficult and complicated. It affects a number of issues and we are in discussions with unions and employers on that. Nobody wants to see a year's redundancy being lost because people were on the PUP through no fault of their own. At the same time putting that cost on business has a consequence also. We are trying to work out that in consultation with ICTU and IBEC.

I thank the Tánaiste. Regarding the PUP and redundancy, speed is of the essence. It is affecting people's lives in terms of decision making. I would appreciate a quicker timeline. This issue has been raised continuously with me by ICTU. It cannot affect people's redundancy so we need to work out a formula for dealing with it.

I noted in his reply that the Tánaiste did not answer the question on the plan with regard to young people. I have a serious concern that we need to be planning now for young people because they have been scarred unlike any others trying to enter the workforce, losing their jobs, etc. What is the plan for young people?

Finally, is it fair to say now that given the disruptive nature of Covid on everything in this country the Ireland 2040 plan is in need of a total revision?

I thank the Deputy. The plan for young people and to ensure we do not have high levels of youth unemployment when the pandemic is over is three-fold: it is to save as many jobs and businesses as possible; to create new jobs, which we are doing; and to create more educational and training opportunities ranging from higher education to further education to apprenticeships to lifelong learning opportunities. All of that is being done currently and driven forward by Government.

The review of the national development plan, NDP, and Project Ireland 2040 is currently under way. We expect to be in a position in May or June, led by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy McGrath, to publish a revised Project Ireland 2040, a revised NDP. That will run out to 2030. That will allow us to include more projects than are currently in it but it needs to be reviewed because one thing that is very different from when that was launched in Sligo is that we had almost full employment at the time. We are in a very different position now. Obviously, issues like employment and climate action have to move up the agenda and other issues may have to come down the agenda.