Up to half a million jobs could be created over the next decade through investment in research and development, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen claimed today.
Mr Cowen said continuing employment trends and Government investment of €4 billion should lead to the extra posts.
The jobs drive will also be supported by measures in December's Budget and the forthcoming National Development Plan.
Speaking on the second day of Fianna Fáil's annual meeting in Westport, Co Mayo, Mr Cowen called for more investment in science, technology and innovation.
"If we want to have full employment and good paying jobs then we can't sit back and expect the jobs to be there. I strongly support investing in this area, and I intend reflecting this in the new National Development Plan and Budget," he added.
Earlier Taoiseach Bertie Ahern admitted that he was "appalled" at the crisis in A&E that led to people sleeping on trolleys.
Mr Ahern told delegates at the meeting: "It gave me no satisfaction last year to see the fact that we were spending almost €13 billion in health, and I heard that people couldn't get a blanket or were sleeping on trolleys.
"That appalled me and rather than being appalled like everyone else I had to get out and do something about it."
He told RTÉ radio that health was the topic of discussion for the party this morning and that they were "trying to get community medicine, put more resources in for the elderly people and trying to do more in the National Treatment Fund.
"If we can solve them all this winter, I don't know. But the sure thing is we have to solve them over the next few years, that's important."
Sinn Féin spokesman on health and children, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin , described Mr Ahern's comments on the crisis in A&E as "breathtaking".
"The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern spoke as if he had only discovered last winter the crisis in our hospital Accident and Emergency departments . . . . The Taoiseach's comments can only be described as breathtaking," he said.
"Five years ago the Government's own Health Strategy Quality and Fairness - A Health System for Youidentified key factors in the ongoing A&E crisis. These included the need for an additional 3,000 acute hospital beds. Little progress has been made in providing these beds and the Taoiseach himself has cast doubt on the need for them.
"Meanwhile he has given free rein to Tánaiste Mary Harney to pursue her health privatisation agenda with public lands and tax breaks for developers of private hospitals," he added.
Mr Ó Caoláin said that before the last general election Fianna Fáil promised to end hospital waiting lists within two years and to provide and additional 200,000 full medical cards. "They clearly believe that the people will be taken in a second time by their duplicity on our health services."
Mr Ahern also admitted this morning that, if he won the next election, it would be his last term as Taoiseach.
"I'd like to give [the] experience that I have to this country, in the role that I have, until I am 60, and then I'll go and paddle my own canoe. That's another five years, my birthday is next week."
He said that there were only two people who could be Taoiseach next summer - "Enda Kenny or me".
Mr Kenny and Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte met in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, this afternoon to publish the first section of their own joint document on the health issue.
The two men also planned to discuss their joint general election plans and will publish the first of a series of detailed policies they have agreed to put before the electorate.