RICHARD BRUTON BELIEVES the government will have a strong case to say it did exactly what voters asked of them when the country goes the polls at the next general election.
The Jobs Minister mounted a strong defence of the Fine Gael/Labour government’s policies in the four years since it was elected despite continuing poor poll numbers.
Despite new figures showing that over 1,000 jobs a week are being created and a further jobs boost from the consulting firm Deloitte today the good economic news has not translated into improved poll numbers for the two government parties.
The most recent B&A poll in the Sunday Times put Fine Gael on 27% support with Labour in just 6%, well short of what the two parties will need to be returned to government when the country votes before next April.
“Ultimately we will put a very strong case to the people that we have done exactly what we were asked to do,” Bruton told reporters in Dublin today .
We’ve taken an economy which was on its knees, where public services were in a state of collapse, where emigration was huge, unemployment was huge and we’ve taken people on a journey and we can now set targets for the future.
He said these included reaching full employment by 2018, spending €15 billion extra in communities and using €6 billion extra in revenue for the exchequer to build new services.
“I think we always knew when we were elected that this was a journey. We came from a situation where 300,000 people has lost their jobs, unemployment was at 15 per cent and we’ve been on a very difficult transition,” he said.
The Fine Gael TD insisted this would be the story that people will reflect on when it comes to an election “that’s still a very significant distance off”.
“I think people are not focussing on that yet and there is a lot of hurt around and I understand that, I meet it everyday,” he added.
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