The Government is to announce its jobs initiative later today as part of a key effort to tackle the country's unemployment crisis.
The Cabinet was this morning putting the final touches to the package. Finance Minister Michael Noonan is due to confirm details of the package at around five this evening in the Dail.
With the contents of this initiative widely trailed in recent weeks opposition parties were giving their verdicts on the plan well before it was unveiled.
Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty said the Government's 'revenue neutral' jobs initiative would also be 'jobs neutral' and that his party would be proposing a €2.9 billion stimulus package as an alternative, with €2 billion coming from the National Pension Reserve Fund.
Micheál Martin has already poured cold water on the scheme, claiming jobs came from getting the economic environment right and were not created by governments.
The broad thrust of the plan will see cuts in VAT and PRSI rates but a reversal in the cut in the minimum wage. There will be school building and improvement programmes as well as training and internship places.
A plan for a levy on private pension funds has already been criticised but Ministers claim this will be so small that it can easily be absorbed by the firms involved.
Employers, unions and other interest groups have already submitted their proposals. But observers will focus on how the initiative will be funded - given the Government's commitment that it will be cost-neutral.
With 440,000 people on the Live Register, and around half of those now long term unemployed, there is no denying the urgency of the jobs crisis.
The Government must now match its pre-election words to post election deeds. Measures are expected in a number of areas aimed at improving the environment for job creation.
As well as talk of a cut in employers' PRSI for low earners, the package is expected to include loan guarantee schemes, training and work experience programmes, and labour activation measures to eliminate disincentives to work in the social welfare system.
A national home insulation plan in conjunction with state energy companies and reductions in red tape are also expected.
Observers will examine what the Government plans to do about the legally binding JLC wage setting mechanisms. While employers have urged wholesale abolition, unions argue that they protect vulnerable workers and should be reformed rather than eliminated.
Further borrowing for the initiative is virtually impossible, which means that expenditure in one area requires corresponding taxes, levies - or more spending cuts.
