THE TAOISEACH has defended the Government’s jobs programme against criticism that many of its proposals have been announced before.

Enda Kenny insisted this programme was different because unlike others, this one would be implemented. He criticised as “daft” a call to state how many people would be off the dole by certain dates within the next year.

He told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams: “That’s like saying how many seagulls flew over the Phoenix Park in the last three weeks. This is a daft question and you know it. What you need to do is create an atmosphere and opportunity where business can flourish.”

The jobs initiative announced on Monday aims to create 200,000 jobs by 2020, with the first 100,000 by 2016.

Mr Adams claimed some of the proposals in the programme “have been announced several times”.

He said there was no new money for the initiative and no meaningful targets had been set.

The Northern Ireland Executive was investing more than £500 million in road building and the development of hospitals and the Louth TD said this was the type of investment the Government needed to make. He said the problem with the initiative was there was no money and the Government remained committed to its austerity programme.

Independent TD Finian McGrath said he welcomed any plan to create jobs and “scoring points” would not help people on the dole, but he believed the “elephant in the room” was the black economy.

He said the Revenue Commissioners and small businesses estimated the State was losing €5 billion a year in tax because of “undercut rogue operators”.

He also urged the Taoiseach to be very careful about county enterprise boards because some of them had been very successful in job creation. He asked if there was a role for the State and semi-State sector in creating jobs.