This article is from page 62 of the 2009-11-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 62 JPG
TANAISTE Mary Couglan has ad- mitted that the money is not there to implement all of the recommen- dations made by the Mid-West Task Force which was set up in the wake of massive job losses at Dell.
The Task Force was appointed by the Tanaiste herself after Dell an- nounced it was moving all of its manufacturing process to Poland, taking 2,000 wagepackets directly out of the economy and causing fur- ther job-losses in companies depend- ant on feeding the Dell plant.
After his interim report to Govern- ment, Denis Brosnan, Chairman of
the Task Force, said that any further work done by him and the Task Force would be a “waste of time’ unless the recommendations published four months ago are implemented.
Among those recommendations were that the Government should tackle costs in Ireland, to accelerate the regeneration programme in Lim- erick and to improve back to educa- tion allowance schemes.
Speaking before taking the mike at the Shannon Development ‘Dynamic Regions – Directions in Regional De- velopment’ conference last Friday the Tanaiste and Minister for Enter- prise said that while a lot of the rec- ommendations which have a national
context are being addressed, she stressed that “it has to be said that we don’t have the financial wherewithal to implement every recommendation that there is.”
But she promised that she and her government colleagues “will be bringing together two or three items that need to be addressed here in the context of the Task Force here to see if we can find the financial where- withal in next year’s budget to allow that to happen.”
The Tanaiste was speaking to the conference as Government employ- ees took to the streets to protest at proposed cuts in pay and revised work practices.
The Tanaiste told the conference that a “seismic change in attitude” is need in the public sector.
Citing the example of Shannon De- velopment “who did their own reor- ganisation without a word about it” she said that if public sector employ- ees are not prepared to co-operate to get the balance right “then Govern- ment will have to make a decision… everyone will have to take a reduc- tion in their standard of living. Many people in the private sector have done this in order to keep their jobs.
“A lot of people in the private sec- tor have lost their jobs and it is part of my portfolio to try and get those people back to work again and attract
more jobs to this country and support entrepreneurship,” the Tanaiste con- tinued.
Speaking to the conference itself, she said “I believe regional devel- Opment is now more important than ever. To be more competitive and innovative, we need more regional actions on the ground to devise so- lutions to help us on the road to na- tional recovery.
“IT believe the time for strong re- gional development is now. Mobilis- ing the contribution of each region to national competitiveness is at forefront of what we do. Strong re- gions will help us grow and sustain a strong national economy.”