“Securing the Recovery” – 4th Government Annual Report

Yesterday marked four years since this Government took office.

Four short years ago Ireland faced an unprecedented economic and social crisis: an economy in freefall; banks on the brink of collapse; public finances out of control; thousands of jobs lost every month and Ireland’s international reputation in shreds.

A country mired in a Troika bailout programme.

In response, the Irish people gave a clear mandate to a new government – Fine Gael and the Labour Party – to fix the public finances and get our country working again.

We followed a clear plan.

It was not an easy plan. It involved some very tough and painful decisions.

But the plan is working.

The economy is recovering.
Thanks to the sacrifices of our people, Ireland is now moving in the right direction.

Financial and economic stability have been restored.

The bailout has been ended.

Jobs are being created – 90,000 new jobs since the Action Plan for Jobs was launched.

We are well on track to reduce the deficit to well below 3% of GDP this year.

And Ireland is predicted to have the fastest growth rate in the EU in 2015 for the second year running.

In the Government annual report being published today we are reporting progress on 90% of our commitments – 91% of Programme for Government commitments and 86% of the Statement of Government Priorities commitments.

There is good progress right across Government with 71% of all commitments delivered or substantially progressed.

The priority for Government now is to secure the recovery.

To ensure that everyone will feel the benefits of economic recovery in their daily lives.

That we build solid foundations for a sustainable, enterprise focused economy that supports jobs and people’s lives.

To achieve this job creation remains the number one priority for the Government.

It is essential that by 2018 everyone who wants a job can get a job.

We are building a sustainable enterprise and export led economy. With real skills, real opportunities, creating real jobs.

Our plan is to help create 40,000 new jobs this year and to achieve full employment by 2018.

This is the key to attracting home the tens of thousands of our young people who left during the crisis.

Their plight is a tragedy for their families but is also a massive loss to our country.

They are the next wave of entrepreneurs, innovators and job creators that we need to secure recovery for Ireland.

We must ensure coming home is an attractive option.

We have begun the process of cutting the USC and income taxes for workers, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income earners.

For the first time in seven years, working families are now seeing a modest rise in their take-home pay. We will reduce the USC and tax rates further in the next budget.

Well designed tax cuts that reward hard work and enterprise and help create jobs generate the resources we need for better services and more investment.

We also need to ensure that as the economy recovers that vulnerable workers are paid fairly.

That is why we have established established the Low Pay Commission, which will report in July.

The Government will respond by the October Budget.

With unemployment falling rapidly, mortgage distress is now the most painful legacy of the decade of economic mismanagement by Fianna Fáil. The arsonists who set fire to our homes are now offering advice on how to extinguish the flames.

In the Statement of Government Priorities, the Tánaiste and I agreed that the Government would conduct a review of the implementation of the Central Bank’s mortgage arrears targets set for the banks and the operation of the Insolvency Service to ensure that both bodies have the powers needed to
support families willing to work their way through their debt problems.

This review is near completion. Building on the significant progress made to date in reducing mortgage arrears levels overall, the Government will announce a new set of measures in April designed to focus in particular on the still unacceptably large numbers of families in long term mortgage arrears now facing repossession of their homes.

While I do not exclude the possibility of further legislation, nothing will be done to fundamentally undermine the availability of mortgages for young families, or to increase interest rates for those on variable rate mortgages. Access to secured, mortgage lending has been, and must remain, a vital engine for social mobility and progress in this country.

At the same time, far too many mortgage arrears cases have ended up before the courts. Many of these cases should have been resolved by earlier engagement between borrowers and their banks. More cases could be resolved by the Insolvency Service, and it is right to expect that the proportion of debt deals being accepted by creditors should increase. Among the areas that are being examined to address this will be:

· awareness of the Insolvency Service among debt distressed families
· independent audit of the quality of debt deals that are being recommended by Personal Insolvency Practitioners
· the options available to borrowers where insolvency arrangements have been rejected by the creditors
· the supports available to families who cannot pay even a re-structured mortgage or meet the requirements of an insolvency arrangement

There is renewed optimism in this country and there is a strong basis for this optimism.

I believe that we can create a sustainable and well-managed economy that creates the resources for the services people depend on.

But as we have witnessed in other countries, hard-won economic stability, progress and credibility can be too easily reversed.

Without political stability, there can be no economic stability.
And without economic stability there will neither be confidence nor investment.

For the next year, this Government will continue to work hard to secure the recovery, and to ensure that its benefits are felt the daily lives of our people, in every corner of Ireland.