Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore recently published Labour's plan for jobs and economic recovery.

Labour's plan is to establish a €1.15 billion job creation fund. Labour's Jobs Fund will facilitate a coherent jobs strategy, to get people back to work, to keep people in employment and provide training and re-education for those who have lost their jobs. Key elements of Labour's Plan include:

• Exempting new jobs from employer PRSI as a tax incentive for businesses to create new opportunities for those seeking work;
• Significant extra funding for enterprise agencies such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA to support existing businesses as well as encourage investment in new enterprise in Ireland;
• Fast-tracking labour intensive building projects such as schools, hospitals and transport schemes to stimulate employment opportunities in the construction sector as well as provide badly needed infrastructure.
• An additional 60,000 training and work experience places, including a Graduate and Apprentice Work Placement Scheme for 30,000 young people.
• Mobilising Further Education colleges and Institutes of Technology to respond to demand for retraining.
• An 'Earn and Learn Scheme' that keeps people in employment while upskilling;
• A tax-back scheme to fund full-time study;
• Reduce the qualifying period for Back to Education Allowance and Back to Work Enterprise Allowance to 3 months;
• A 'Skills Exchanges' to help maximise the expertise available for retraining;
• Additional resources for literacy programmes.

The biggest economic and social problem facing us is the threat to existing jobs and the lack of jobs for those looking for work. Across the country there are now over 430,000 people looking for work. That's almost a quarter of a million more people out of work since this Fianna Fail government was re-elected in 2007. The additional cost to the taxpayer from this increase in unemployment amounts to more than €5 billion per year, through lost tax revenue and additional social welfare spending.

In every community, families are feeling the strain and are looking for solutions. Labour has been arguing for months that it is not simply a question of getting the budget arithmetic correct, but also of developing a Plan for National Recovery. Labour in government will provide the job creation programmes necessary to get people back working again. Other elements of Labour's Plan for National Recovery include;

• A Home Guarantee, with statutory backing, that people facing difficulties in meeting mortgage repayments will not be put out of their homes for the period of the recession.
• An acceptance that the Budget should be based on the principles of fairness and equity: that those who have the most, must contribute the most
• A negotiated agreement to secure savings in the public sector wage bill, that would be based on securing reforms and savings, and on ensuring a more efficient public service for the future
• Industrial Peace through a commitment from the trade union movement, that if these actions are taken, then there will be no strikes