Taoiseach Enda Kenny says 2014 will be "the year for jobs" as the Government aims for full employment by the end of the decade.
Speaking at the launch of the Government's economic plan up to 2020, Mr Kenny said the coalition aims to replace all 330,000 jobs lost during the crisis with new jobs.
The Taoiseach said the plan envisages halving the rate of unemployment to ensure there is full employment.
He said the new Medium Term Economic Strategy would support growth and enterprise.
Mr Kenny said welfare reforms will continue to be a priority so that work pays.
Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore said after exiting the bailout there was "no question of being able to release the purse strings".
Mr Gilmore SAID what really matters is when there are more jobs, more mortgages are resolved and there are more opportunities for our young people.
The 66 page document sets out economic policy up to the end of the decade.
The plan says the government's "immediate priority" is to ensure that the country’s economic recovery is "jobs rich", and also that the economy is "resilient in the face of international shocks".
More support will be given to Irish businesses to export and to innovate more, the Taoiseach said.
Mr Gilmore said the second message in the plan is that we can and must meet full employment, which means getting unemployment rate below 6pc by 2020.
He said the plan is about real and sustainable jobs in an export-led economy.
China will soon be the new leading economy and Ireland needs to build links with places such as China, Mr Gilmore said.
The government’s projection for economic growth is 3.5pc for 2017.
And Mr Kenny promised to replace all the 330,000 jobs that were lost during the recession.
The Government today laid out a fiscal blueprint for the next seven years on to confirm its bailout exit and show that its economy can grow enough to cut its debt by a quarter by the end of the decade.
Some of the central aspects of the plan are to deliver employment, expand trade links, and shift the focus of economic strategy from austerity to growth.
The Government has turned down a backup credit line with enough debt-market funding to cover costs until 2015. It is now keen to prove to investors that it will maintain its fiscal prudence, while offering hope to the austerity-weary that the worst is over.“It is about staying the course. It is a roadmap for the Irish economy,” Taoiseach Enda Kenny told a news conference at Government Buildings. “It will provide certainty for the Irish people and for investors in our country.”
Last weekend , Ireland became the first euro zone member to successfully complete a bailout, after three years of monitoring by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. EU leaders say that proved their policy of austerity is working.
“The Irish people have made a lot of sacrifices to ensure Ireland’s recovery,” Mr Kenny said at the press conference, which was also attended by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan. “We will ensure that the mistakes of the past won’t be repeated.”
The plan contains chapters on areas focused on by the troika during the bailout such as fiscal targets, banking and credit flow and structural reforms.
There are also chapters on jobs and living strategies and a list of initiatives to be undertaken by the Government, with the goal to increase employment back above 2.1 million people by 2020.
The plan also says one more tough budget is needed, and austerity will end in 2016, when the term of the current Government expires.
The Government maintained gross domestic product forecasts of 0.2 per cent this year and 2 per cent next. It said growth would exceed 3 per cent between 2017 and 2020 - the first time it has forecast out that far - and that it would cut its debt to 93 per cent of GDP in 2020 from a peak of 124 per cent this year.
Today’s plan showed the next budget, where tax hikes and spending cuts of €2 billion euros have been penciled in, would be the last round of an austerity drive that began in 2008 and will have amounted to 20 per cent of annual output.
Mr Noonan said yesterday that higher-than-forecast tax revenues this year should enable it to beat its budget deficit target and is likely to leave room to ease austerity in next year’s budget. There are signs the economy is picking up steam - the jobless rate has fallen to 12.5 per cent from a 15.1 per cent peak in 2012. The Government forecast today that the unemployment rate would fall to 8.1 per cent by 2020.
Ahead of the press conference, Mr Kenny said the framework would set out the “main signposts” that the State’s budget polict will follow over the next seven years.
“This is not a time for a change of direction or a change course,” he told reporters in his way into the final Cabinet meeting before Christmas. “This will be based on enterprise.”
He said the Government believed borrowing could be eliminated with six years and jobs lost during the recession could be recovered.
In the New Year, each department will be required to publish their own plans, he said.
Mr Gilmore added that clear targets were needed.
The Government was working on the economic plan to get “unemployment down, to get jobs created and to improve living standards,” he said on his way into Cabinet.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/kenny-we-want-full-employment-by-end-of-decade-29846117.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/economic-strategy-for-post-bailout-era-outlined-1.1630712
