The Minister for Industry and Commerce in his opening statement on this Vote delivered a brief which runs to some 23 columns in the Official Report and I note with considerable disappointment that he devotes only three-quarters of a column to the essential matter of prices, which governs to a tremendous degree all activities in industry and commerce. It affects incomes, affects the balance of trade and it can depress or accelerate the rate of economic growth. Notwithstanding the vital and essential part prices play in our whole economy, all the Minister can say on the matter can be concentrated into three-quarters of a column in a 23-column brief. Even at that, it amounts to no more than an apologia for the inactivity of the Government in the whole field of price control.
At the same time as we have inactivity on the Government's part in relation to prices, we have the same Government perpetually complaining about the inflationary trend caused by increases in wages. We had this in the famous Whittaker report; we had it adopted as official Fianna Fáil policy that wages must be kept to the lowest possible figure because they and they alone are condemned by Fianna Fáil as being the inflationary trigger-factor in the economy.
Prices include an element of profit and profit is a form of income. We in Fine Gael condemn the Fianna Fáil Government for their consistent failure over the past seven years to have a proper incomes policy, that is, a policy which would regulate not only wage incomes and salary incomes but which would also regulate incomes from non-wage and non-salary sources, and that includes incomes which can be earned from profits. I do not for one moment want to sabotage the incentive which profits give to the entrepreneur to expand his industry, to increase his production and to increase opportunities for earning more profit, but what we in Fine Gael say is that if there is to be an increase in national wealth, it should be shared equally and no section of the community should be permitted to hold up to ransom the remainder of the community by enjoying excessive profits.
The Government's only policy in relation to prices is to be found in the 1958 Prices Act. The Minister said that the Government had used to the full the powers under the Prices Act, 1958 and he asked the House to accept that as being sufficient. We do not accept that he has used to the full the powers in that Act. We do say that even if he did, we still have the inflationary spiral such as we have had over the past few years and which from August, 1963 to date has meant an increase in prices of 11 per cent. The effect of all that is that national wage and salary agreements are not going to meet with the confidence of the workers. We feel that a sensible incomes policy is necessary and that it means the difference between stability and a firm distribution of national wealth on the one hand, and the type of anarchy and lack of planned advance which we have had over the past few years. The Minister said the price control—or shall we say, the price superintendence—which they have, worked because of the vigilance of the consuming public. That I suppose is a backhanded compliment to the Opposition but whenever I have heard members of the Opposition being vigilant about prices, they have always been told that the horse had gone and it was too late to lock the stable door. However, all the efforts of the Government amount to locking the door when the horse is gone.
We do not think that it is a sensible price control measure. We would prefer to see the kind of machinery they have in Norway, Holland, Belgium, Austria and other countries where price increases cannot take place without prior notice to the national agencies which advise on prices. That is the sensible way of doing it. to have advance indications given so that consideration can be given before the price increases take place, instead of what we have had under our administration where prices have increased, and after they have increased, the whole tedious machinery of the State is applied, in some instances, and by the time a report and recommendations are brought in a year or more later, circumstances have changed again. In most cases as we know, this heavy and slow-moving machinery has simply confirmed the justification for the increased price. If prior warning had been given a year or so before, there would have been an opportunity of preventing the increase taking place.
I should like to point out that the OECD report on prices and profits and non-wage incomes emphasised the success which price control had in Norway. It stated that in Norway regulations of varying types, some quite general, others more specific, applied to prices or distributive margins of goods and services, accounting for about half of the total rate of the consumer price index. It goes on to state that:
The Norwegian authorities believe that effective supervision of prices and profits, backed up by appropriate statutory powers, are essential to win the confidence of the wage earners that the authorities both in principle aim at and in practice are able to achieve, a satisfactory control of the development of non-wage incomes.
It is open to us to apply the same machinery here.
We should certainly in principle aim at—and if we aim at, we have every opportunity and prospect of achieving in practice—that reasonable degree of control of elements in prices and as long as we carry on the "I-couldn't-care-less" attitude of the Government, we are going to have that inflationary spiral continued. The experience of people over the duration of the existing National Wage Agreement is such as to urge them when the next wage agreement comes to be negotiated, to ask for more than the economy can perhaps spare because their experience has been that while they have been asked to accept 12 per cent, the incomes and profits of others have been allowed to drift without any control at all.
This was emphasised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recently when they pointed out that in a period during which wages were restrained to a figure of an eight per cent increase, profits increased by 46 per cent. It seems to us to be totally inequitable that one section of the community can enjoy an increase of something like 46 per cent and during the same time the worker should be asked to accept only eight per cent. The kind of rational policy which we should like to have applied would prevent that kind of thing developing. The machinery which would be a required to implement this would be a supervisory tribunal on which management and workers and the Government would have representation.
I think there has been an acceptance in recent times here of the need for economic forecasts and we have had a considerable amount of forecasting in economic and financial matters. It is also only sensible that we should try to estimate and forecast what should be the appropriate increase in incomes not only for the wage earner but also for the non-wage earner and income earner because with both of these factors known and having information on prices generally, such a tribunal if it had the confidence of the trade unions and the confidence of the consumers, would be able to set certain guides within which prices could move. If the tribunal were established, the producers of the goods or the fixers of the prices would also have confidence in its recommendations and judgement.
I do not ask for the imposition of emergency price control which might be justified in war time. We do not think that is necessary, desirable or practicable but we say there must be a coming to grips with the whole question of prices, of incomes, of wage incomes and non-wage incomes, and if we do not do that, all the efforts and forecasts in economic and financial matters will go astray. We already know that the country is off-target so far as the Second Programme for Economic Expansion is concerned: we know from what we heard today that the Government have not taken the necessary corrective measures to put the national economy back on target and if, in addition to that, we also allow the drift to continue in matters of prices, then we shall return to the stage of anarchy and the ludicrous situation in which a great deal of money and effort is being spent on economic forecasts which will go astray because of the indifference the Government have displayed in matters of prices.
Another serious omission from the Minister's statement concerns industrial relations. I can think of no two more universal elements in economic life than prices, on the one hand, and industrial relations, on the other. In his 23-column brief, which the Minister has now put on the records of the House, we find that while prices got three-quarters of a column, we fare even worse in relation to industrial relations to which a half-column is devoted. We think this is most unfortunate and it is about time the Government ceased running away from that extremely awkward but very fundamental problem. We are led to believe that the new Parliamentary Secretary, whom we all wish well, is being asked to concern himself with this problem. We would hope he will do so and that we shall have an end to the appalling history of industrial disputes which we have here.
Many people like to boast of the fact that we have good labour conditions and that we have little trouble in the labour sphere but compared with some other countries, our experience in recent years is disastrous. In one recent year, for instance, we find that while we had a loss of 43.9 working days per 1,000 people, Germany had only 1.2; the Netherlands also only had 1.2 working days lost and Sweden had only .4 of a working day lost due to industrial disputes. We must try to achieve a similar target here.
The recently-published Statistical Abstract for 1964 also shows that trend has continued. The figures I have quoted were. I think, for 1959 and some years since then have been worse. In the year 1961, the number of working days lost per 1,000 of the population was 135; in 1962, it was about 47 working days and in 1963, it went up again to 83 working days lost, due to industrial disputes. There are two sides to every dispute and there has been a tendency on the part of some people to blame the worker for all such disputes. Last year we had a Government sunk in a mire of internal dispute allowing a crippling industrial dispute to last here for several months and it only came to an end with a Government crisis and a Minister resigning. At least he had the courage and integrity to resign: there were others who held the same view as he still holds about unions and workers because if there were not other members of the Government who held the same views as Deputy Smith, the Government would not have failed to act—as they did—for three months.
In any case the Government had a crisis and as a result the dispute which had reached deadlock was suddenly resolved. We do not want that kind of thing to continue—not that I am in the least worried about a crisis in the Government: that would be a good thing for the country as we know from the past—but we do not want further industrial disputes to develop because of the lack of prior consultation, because of the lack of thought beforehand. They drift into stalemate of confusion and bitterness. It should be possible to develop industrial machinery which would avoid these disputes at the beginning.
When Deputy Donegan, the Fine Gael spokesman on Industry and Commerce, opened the debate for the Opposition, he referred to the success of the joint labour councils in certain industries on which both the staff and management are represented. He spoke of the high degree of success which these committees have had. He mentioned that they did not have entire agreement, that they had their arguments and differences but that they had been reasoned out in a sensible manner and had been hammered out on the whole successfully without having to resort to industrial action. That is the kind of thing we need.
In Germany, where they have a loss of working days only one-fortieth of ours, as I have mentioned, they have work councils in all industries employing more than 50 people. It is compulsory. The law of the land so requires it. It may well be that we need to take action of a similar kind here to make it compulsory to have these joint labour committees or these work councils. There may be a great deal to be said for having these based like the old craft unions on the particular industries rather than leaving the settling of all disputes to an outside body like a labour court. Quite clearly, the Government will have to tackle this problem. It is a problem in which the whole community has a right to speak. It is a problem which affects the whole economy. Unless there is a grappling with it we will be unable to reach the targets which have been set for this country for 1970.
There are other possible improvements which could be applied in industrial relations. One of these would be the requirement that a longer term of notice be given by employers before dismissal of employees. A corollary to that would be that employees would have to give longer notice to employers. This appears to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Practice requires long notice to be given for many forms of contracts, such as the supply of goods or services or housing accommodation. All these are a great deal less important than the question of human labour. If practice and legislation have required ample notice to be given for the discontinuance of services of another kind, we think it is time our social contracts imposed the need to give longer notice before terminating employment whatever obligations might flow as a consequence.
Incentive bonus schemes and profit sharing are things which many managers and employers are afraid of. There is a need for Governmental action to suggest lines to employers which would make it relatively easy to have such incentive bonus schemes and profit sharing. It may well be that it would require some measure of tax relief or some other form of fiscal incentive to get these things going but if we are to achieve the rate of growth which we hope for these things must be implemented and that must be done very soon.
The much vaunted Second Programme for Economic Expansion envisages that we will be short of 100,000 necessary jobs by 1970. If we fail in the least to be on target, even for that disappointing goal, then we will have an appalling social and economic mess here. We are only five years from 1970 and we cannot afford to drift any further in industrial relations and in prices.
There is clearly a need for true human equality to express itself in industry. This can only be achieved if there is complete confidence between management and staff. We are drifting far away from that kind of Christian objective and I would certainly hope that the Government together with employers and trade unions would be able to achieve a degree of industrial happiness commensurate with what is already experienced in Germany, Holland, Sweden and other places.
The Minister paid some glowing tributes to the Fair Trade Commission. Many of us found it very interesting to discover that the Commission was alive at all because it has been noted more for its inactivity over recent years than for anything else. The Minister mentioned, for instance, that the Commission had inquired into practices in the intoxicating liquor trade and said that the Commission are satisfied that there was no collective action taken to enforce enhanced prices and that a reasonable element of competition exists. One would like to know what exactly the Minister and the Commission have in mind when they speak of "a reasonable element of competition."
One case which has been brought to the notice of the Commission in recent times, and I understand also to the Minister's notice, is one in which a licensed beer wholesaler, a Dublin concern, which has a licence from the courts to carry on a business as a licensed beer wholesaler, has been refused supplies by a number of breweries. It would appear that there is a tendency for all breweries here to channel their output into the one distribution concern. It appears to be entirely wrong that supplies should be denied to legitimate beer wholesalers and one would like to know the reason behind this limitation of distribution. I would hope that the Minister and the Commission would look into that matter.
I have had occasion within the past year to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he would take steps to render void clauses in mortgages and leases which compel the mortgagors and lessees to insure properties with particular insurance companies. This is another activity in which the Minister and the Fair Trade Commission are empowered to take action. It is about time they did. At present, quite a number of mortgagors and ground landlords compel people to insure with particular insurance companies. Many of these companies have their headquarters outside the State and the result of this is that premiums for necessary fire insurance are being paid to companies which in turn are investing the money outside the State.
I know there has been an increase in the amount of money invested by insurance companies here, even those that are foreign-owned, but it is clearly unfair practice to require people to insure with any particular company. There are often cases where people are agents for particular insurance companies and if they insure with the insurance companies in question they are entitled to whatever agency fee is going. Also, some people like to keep a portfolio of insurances with the one company. Clauses of this nature are clearly unfair and are unnecessary and the sole justifiction for them would appear to be that the mortgagees or lessors in question, by imposing this condition, are able to make whatever agency profit is afforded to them. There appears to be no social justification whatever for maintaining these restrictive clauses and I do think the Minister and his Department and the Fair Trade Commission should take some action in connection with it.
The Minister's Department also concern themselves with the question of hire purchase transactions. I am not too sure what the exact figure is for the amount outstanding on hire purchase transactions at the moment but it is somewhere in the region of £28 million to £30 million. That is a great deal of money, even if you say it quickly. Unfortunately, a great deal of that money has been put out on unsound hire purchase transactions and there are quite a number of unsound transactions and of questionable contractual credit transactions which I think the Minister should take action to control. The old moneylenders, the old money extortionists and the pawnbroker, who is a respected member of the community, are declining in number. There are not so many of them going around now as there used to be. These have been replaced by a number of sharp-practice hire purchase operators.
We have asked here from these benches for a control of hire purchase transactions at people's houses. This has become a serious social evil in parts of Dublin, particularly in the housing estates occupied by workers. Cases have come to notice where housewives in serious financial trouble have entered into hire purchase transactions for a washing machine or some other unit of household equipment where they are clearly unable to pay for the equipment in question, and the reason they entered into it was to obtain custody of the goods and then to sell the goods before the expiration of the hire purchase repayment period.
It is no answer to that to say that to sell goods which are on hire purchase is a criminal offence. It is, of course, a criminal offence but most of the unfortunate housewives and others who are under pressure financially do not appreciate that or, even if they do, they decide to take the risk. There has been a case in which one housewife bought three washing machines, three television sets or three refrigerators, and the only reason the unfortunate lady purchased them was in order to gain custody of the goods to sell them and thereby obtain some liquid assets in exchange for the hire purchase commodity.
That practice is continuing. I do not know whether the Minister's Department is yet convinced of the need to do something about it but we have seen where in the neighbouring island legislation has been introduced to remedy that state of affairs; now contracts may not be signed at people's homes and there is a cooling off period. These are things which the Minister should seriously consider and, if he does, we may have an end to the undesirable hire purchase transactions which are taking place.
I have here a cutting from the Irish Times of 31st March, 1964, in which the Reverend James Coulter of St. Columb's College, Derry, speaking at the Christus Rex Congress in Bangor, is reported as saying that “when agents were not restricted, the housewife was frequently tricked by pressure selling”. That is perhaps a milder or more refined way of putting what I was saying but it is interesting that a sociologist has observed this. The Minister should take a serious look at activities of this kind which are clearly undesirable and which are leading people to enter into financial commitments which they are in no position to meet.
Credit unions have done a great deal of work and could do more to break people from the vicious entanglements of hire purchase. The credit union movement has been knocking at the door of the Department of Industry and Commerce for some years past asking for legislative powers and for modernisation of friendly societies. I appreciate the restriction on advocating legislation on an Estimate debate but I would ask the Minister to expedite consideration of that problem.
The Friendly Societies section of the Department of Industry and Commerce is, I suppose, the Cinderella of the Department. It is hardly thought about at all but quite frequently it concerns itself, or should concern itself, with small voluntary societies in which local communities invest their savings or try to promote a certain amount of parochial, neighbourly co-operation. Some of these have not been entirely successful and the Friendly Societies section has not been strict enough in requiring these societies to make their annual return. It ought to be more strict if only for the purpose of encouraging the kind of enterprise for which the Friendly Societies legislation was introduced. The Act under which our friendly societies operate at the moment was passed in 1896 and, without advocating any fresh legislation on the matter, I was thinking the Minister and his Department should consider whether or not the machinery and ideas of 1896 are strictly applicable to the needs of 1965 and the second half of the twentieth century.
I understand the Minister was present at a meeting of the Federation of Trade Associations and he may have heard there Mr. Leo McCarthy, the President of that body, express concern at the extent to which urban property was passing into foreign hands, particularly in the distributive trade. It is wholly undesirable that so many of our distributive outlets should be allowed to fall into the hands of foreigners and the Minister should take steps to control this.
One certainly likes to encourage foreigners who are bringing over here new skills, new knowledge and new enterprise and providing new export markets, but most of these invaders into the distributive trade are not bringing over any skill, knowledge or wealth which is not already here. What they are doing to a great extent is imposing on Irish industry the duty to supply them with greater profits. That is what the supermarket system amounts to. It is a machine whereby the wealthy can compel the manufacturer or original producer of the goods to provide them with substantial discounts; the effect of giving bigger discounts to those foreigners is to give them bigger profits, and the economy in the long run must bear these larger profits.
The result of all this is that, while Mrs. Murphy thinks that by spending 1/10d. in the supermarket and saving 9d, she is doing well, in fact she might be paying only 1/6d in the old-style, traditional grocer's shop if these foreign invaders and profit-winners had not entered into the distribution system at all. Perhaps I am overstating the case. I would not like somebody to say that the figures I have given here paid by Mrs. Murphy represent the entire profit distribution in the supermarket activity. However, it is worth consideration because the trend is for these foreign concerns to increase in number and influence.
In addition, there have been a number of take-overs by foreign industrialists of successful Irish concerns. This is also something which is not to be encouraged. It is one thing, as I say, if they bring in new skill and provide opportunities which were not there before, but when they take over entirely successful Irish business, it is time for the Minister for industry and Commerce to cry halt and to ensure that it does not happen. If this is not done, we shall be in an extremely awkward position in years to come where successful Irish industries which have flourished on their own, in bad times as well as good, may be closed down altogether because the international combine which backed them may find it more profitable to operate in London, Hamburg, New York or elsewhere. I do not say that is what happened in Dundalk. I do not know enough about the recent unfortunate developments in Dundalk to say that, but there is that danger, once foreigners are allowed to take over Irish enterprises and the chill economic wind blows upon the parent company elsewhere. Therefore, the Minister should not be indifferent about the number of foreigners taking over successful Irish enterprises
Last Autumn we had a grim tragedy in Dublin in which a young boy lost his life as a result of a homemade bomb exploding. At that time I asked the then Minister for Industry and Commerce if he would take steps to control the sale to juveniles of sodium chlorate and other chemicals used in the manufacture of explosives. The Minister informed me that he had under consideration revision and codification of the law relating to explosives and other dangerous substances and he would consider a provision on the lines I suggested. I would hope the Department has not put this matter on the long finger. It is very important that tragedies of the kind that happened last year should be avoided and, if the Department would expedite consideration of the matter, I am sure many people would be very relieved.
Deputy Clinton and others referred to the large number of bodies which must be consulted by people considering the establishment of new industrial enterprises or the expansion of existing ones. The time has come, I think, to amalgamate all the existing bodies under one authority. We have at the moment the Industrial Development Authority, Foras Tionscal, Córas Tráchtála, the Industrial Credit Corporation and the Department of Industry and Commerce. We hear a great deal of talk about rationalisation and modernisation, the chief spokesman for these views being the Department of Industry and Commerce, and one is naturally amazed to discover, in the light of that, five different units in the State dealing with new industrial enterprises or the expansion of existing ones.
I know each of these bodies has a particular function; one tries to encourage foreigners to come in here and establish industries; another provides loans and grants for new industries or the expansion of existing ones; another tries to find export markets for the manufactured goods; another provides loans; and the Department has a general supervisory function in relation to all of them. Foreigners who come over here naturally get somewhat confused by this large number of different bodies, each of which must consider the same suggestion. It should be possible now to amalgamate these into one body.
Some very kind words were spoken during the debate about the Industrial Development Authority, all the more remarkable because of those who uttered them. The Minister spoke about the success achieved by the Industrial Development Authority in attracting new industries from abroad. At column 810 of Volume 215 of the Official Report he said:
The success achieved by the Industrial Development Authority in attracting new industries from abroad is reflected in the fact that 25 of these new industries were started with external participation. The total capital investment represented by the 32 new industrial units is estimated to be of the order of £10 million.
Later, at column 854, Deputy Crowley said:
I am especially pleased with the modern and dynamic approach which the Industrial Development Authority are displaying in going after new business in various countries.
One would not anticipate that these words could be spoken here by disciples of Deputy Seán Lemass who, from this side of the House, when the Authority was set up, undertook to demolish it as soon as he got back to Office. Listening to all the praise heaped upon the Authority, one would think that the Authority was the baby of Fianna Fáil. Far from it. They were not the parents of it and they did everything they could to ensure it would be stillborn; when their efforts failed in that direction, they undertook to kill it as soon as they got the chance. We are glad that the malice and envy then displayed here has now turned into wholehearted support of the enterprise.
We are glad Fianna Fáil have found themselves obliged to accept the Fine Gael policy of encouraging industrial expansion by means of grants and also glad that they have found it necessary and desirable to encourage industrial exports by means of tax incentives. We, on this side of the House, take some pride in the fact that it was we who compelled a reluctant Fianna Fáil Party to accept these ideas. Had they not been introduced into the Irish economy, we would have had in recent years an entirely different picture and, instead of the limited degree of industrial expansion we have had, we would have had a continuing failure, had we continued on the old dismal policies of Fianna Fáil.
I want now to pay a well deserved tribute to Irish industrialists, both management and staff, for the magnificent way in which they overcame the 15 per cent British levy. They did that notwithstanding the wails and moans of the Taoiseach and members of the Government. Recall for a moment what happened when the British Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the imposition of this levy. The Taoiseach talked about a body blow. Other members of Fianna Fáil said this levy would disrupt the whole Second Programme for Economic Expansion. Others said it would throw us back years. It was not the Government and Fianna Fáil who saved the day. It was the management and staff of Irish industry, who ignored the wailing and the moaning and who set about putting their own house in order. When that was done, they went to the Fianna Fáil Ministers and told them exactly what was needed. It is those people who deserve to be thanked now, the people in the field, and not the Fianna Fáil Government who had not the capacity to control the situation, a situation never as disastrous as they tried to pretend it was.
The "Buy Irish" Committee deserves congratulation for the good work they have been doing. It is a sad reflection on us that it needs something of what Fianna Fáil called a "crisis" to stimulate such a campaign and also to stimulate our people into accepting the wisdom of buying Irish: one hopes this campaign will continue. I agree with the Minister that there is emphasis on sophistication and we need to encourage our people to buy Irish because of quality and because of what it means to the economy as a whole. We wish the Committee well.
I was sorry to hear during the week that one of the members of the Committee, who holds a licence for the manufacture here of a particular article which sells well abroad, is distributing this in boxes made in Britain. If there is one thing we can manufacture here, it is boxes and cartons. One wonders how on earth a member of the "Buy Irish" Committee got a licence for the importation of these boxes. Perhaps the Minister would look into this and see if he can persuade the individual concerned to distribute these goods in Irish manufactured cartons and boxes.
The Minister promised us a new manpower authority to forecast the need in relation to various skills and various types of labour. He said that, in addition to having this manpower forecasting agency, he also proposed to set up a new training body to train people who become redundant in circumstances which he described. The circumstances the Minister described were redundancy as a result of the movement towards free trade and the preparations being made to increase the efficiency of industry towards that end. We are very disappointed that the manpower agency and training body are to concern themselves only with redundancy following a movement towards free trade.
We have a chronic seven per cent unemployed. We have institutions we call labour exchanges which are citadels of depression and despair. The employers who bother to consult a labour exchange to deal with their labour problems must be few and far between. If they do, it is certainly only in respect of labour of the unskilled and, in most cases, unwanted type. A community which ignores the retraining of their seven per cent chronic unemployed is failing seriously.
We believe the Minister will have to go much further in his proposed employment and training agency than simply caring for perhaps three per cent of the existing pool of employed— people who may become redundant as a result of our movement towards free trade. The First Programme for Economic Expansion, says at paragraph 104, page 39:
Special consideration will be given to the need for ensuring an adequate supply of personnel, with the requisite knowledge and skill, at all levels of industry.
That was said by the Government seven years ago. Seven years later, we are told we have not got an adequate supply of personnel at all levels of industry, because the Government did nothing since 1958 to provide the necessary manpower agency or the necessary training at all levels of industry. All they did do was pass the Apprenticeship Act four or five years ago.
That is a sad commentary upon the Party who boast as a matter of policy that they are going to expand the economy. They failed to take the necessary steps to increase the number of trained personnel available. The seven to twelve per cent who have been unemployed over that period of seven years could have had those wasted years put to good use if the Government had only introduced the necessary steps for the retraining of those people. One must welcome the fact they have now awakened to their duty and hope they are not just rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, which appears to be all the Minister has in mind, judging by his opening statement. We would ask him to do the sensible thing and have extensive retraining and training machinery available, not only for those who may become redundant in future because of free trade, but also for those who are regarded at present as chronically unemployable because they are not trained for the needs of our modern economy.
