Published: Thursday, 26th November, 2009 4:30pm

Fine Gael to hold Athlone public meeting on job creation

Fine Gael will hold a public meeting in the Athlone Springs Hotel next Friday night outlining the party's plans to create 6,000 new jobs throughout the Midland counties, Deputy Denis Naughten has confirmed.

"Fine Gael has published detailed and costed plans for Rebuilding Ireland by overhauling our State companies in a way that drives our investment programme in broadband, clean energy and water, creating up to 100,000 new jobs - with up to 6,000 of them based locally," explained Deputy Naughten.

"The severity of Ireland's recession compared with other countries is a direct result of the economic policies of Fianna Fáil. Now the country faces the dual challenge of hundreds of thousands of people unemployed along with the collapse of the national finances.

"This Government has only put forward new taxes and ill thought out budget cuts to address the national finances but has done nothing to get people back to work or to fix the economy and restore our competitiveness.

"Fine Gael recognises that in order to get people back to work and generate new investment, we need to reinvent the basis of Ireland's economy around the big trends of the coming decades - the need for cleaner energy and greater use of information and communications technologies."

Fine Gael has published its NewERA economic stimulus and re-structuring policy to rebuild Ireland once again.

NewERA has two main aims:

1. To once again make the Irish economy competitive by investing in key 21st century infrastructures, notably as communications, water and energy.

2. To provide immediate jobs in the planning, construction and operation of these key infrastructure projects. Fine Gael estimates we can make 100,000 new jobs over the next four years.

The full details of these proposals are available on the party's website www.finegael.ie or by attending the public meeting on Friday November 27 at 9pm in the Athlone Springs Hotel on the Tuam Road, Athlone.