5 Governing for Growth and Jobs

The implementation of Ireland’s Action Plan for Jobs (APJ) marks an important innovation in Irish governance, with notable efforts to strengthen co-ordination and collaboration across government in support of private sector-led job creation. It employs high-level political buy-in and a governance structure comprising key government departments, including the Department of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), the key centre-of-government (CoG) institutions. Modelled on the EU-ECB-IMF Troika’s quarterly targets and reporting, the APJ is subject to strong central oversight and rigorous action-oriented monitoring.

Implementation of the APJ could benefit from even deeper CoG-led horizontal policy coordination between the APJ itself and key sector-based strategies so that opportunities for policy synergies are fully exploited (e.g. on innovation, R&D support, support for entrepreneurs/startups and higher education). Stronger vertical institutional co-ordination along with collaboration between central and local authorities could ensure that the local and regional dimensions of job creation are integrated into the roll-out of the national APJ. Deeper private and public engagement and co-ordination at the local level could also facilitate partnerships between government bodies, businesses, and training and academic institutions in each local authority area.

Implementation could be further supported by a robust performance assessment and monitoring framework that tracks the impact of APJ actions against quantifiable outcomes and results targets, and by a more systematic communication strategy that builds active stakeholder commitment to pursue the APJ’s objectives both within and outside government.