THE GOVERNMENT HAS announced details of its much-heralded Action Plan on Jobs, which aims to get 100,000 more people working over the next four years.
Small businesses are key to the scheme, with measures designed to increase investment and improve access to mentoring services for startup companies.
The programme details 270 separate ‘actions’ to boost investment and help new business. Each has a deadline and progress will be monitored on a quarterly basis by a civil service committee.
But don’t worry – we’ve picked out the key details of the Action Plan for you. (You can also read the full document here.) Here’s how the Government is planning to create 100,000 jobs by 2016:
- New funds to invest in small and medium-sized businesses, totalling at least €250million. It’s hoped these will also be leveraged with extra funding from the private sector.
- There will also be measures to improve mentoring services for smaller companies, although only €1.2million in funding has been announced.
- Measures to encourage members of the diaspora to invest in Ireland, in the form of a ‘finder’s fee’ scheme for job creators. This will work alongside the Global Irish initiative, which was promoted last week by Bill Clinton.
- A drive to cut business costs. Government departments have been requested to identify charges or levies on business that can be cut or frozen, by next month.
- Focus on both Ireland’s traditional strengths such as agri-food and tourism, and emerging areas including cloud computing and other IT sectors. Launching the plan, Enda Kenny called these the “old reliables” and the “new reliables” for job creation.
- Encourage job-creating innovation by targeting the current research budget of €500million towards ideas with commercial potential, and altering the tax credit system for research and development.
Details of how, when and by whom each of these aims will be achieved are set out in the table of 270 actions published alongside the overall plan. You can read the full list here.
Launching the plan, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the country had already made “real progress” in dealing with its economic situation and “drawn a line under the banking crisis”.
He said he would personally oversee the implementation of the jobs plan, adding:
The Taoiseach’s department will be working closely with other Departments to make absolutely sure the necessary change is made, results are achieved, jobs grown. There will be constant monitoring of progress with quarterly reports.
Jobs minister Richard Bruton said there was no “big bang” solution to the unemployment rate, which is currently more than 14 per cent. He said instead the plan aims to “rebuild the economy brick by brick, reform by reform, to get back to sustainable enterprise-led growth.”
Read in full: The Government’s full Action Plan for Jobs>
Table: The 270 actions pledged by the Government to implement the plan>
More: Government to launch major jobs plan to tackle unemployment crisis>
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