Deputy Moore gave notice of his intention to raise on the adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 4 on the Order Paper of 4th of March.
Financial Resolutions, 1976. - Adjournment Debate: Irish Youths in London.
When I raised this matter last week—the problem of the emigration of young people to Britain—the Minister gave me a very comprehensive reply but towards the end of it he became somewhat political and said that it is only in the last three years under the present Government that we had net emigration, that while people went away just as many, or more, came back. This is the kernal of the whole matter. The problem of emigration is that the Government have become so complacent about it that they cease to think there is any problem.
The Irish Centre in Camden Town, London, issued a report. If anybody who reads that report becomes complacent, I suggest there is something wrong with our attitude to the problem of emigration. The number of people who went to the Irish Centre is recorded there. Among them were two young girls, one of them 14 years of age. These young people are leaving because employment is so hard to obtain at the moment. Last summer over 52,000 young people left the three stages of our educational institutions, primary, secondary and university. We know it is impossible for the vast majority of those to get any kind of employment. They either stay at home in idleness or in the spirit of adventure they emigrate and become social casualties in the London scene or in other parts of England. The Irish Centre report is a very comprehensive one. I want to compliment the Irish people in that centre who are doing so much good work for our emigrants. This is only one centre, not even the biggest one, in London. What is happening to the young people who go to other parts of Britain and further abroad?
We have to try to bring the Government to their senses in this matter and try to get them to introduce some kind of new policy. If our young people must emigrate—I do not accept they must—for a temporary period then I suggest the Government could at least make sure that they have some kind of training, whether it is through AnCO or through extended educational services. We have all some responsibility in this matter but the Government must bear the greatest responsibility because they are the only people with the power to curb this problem.
The Minister's answer to my question last week was frightfully complacent. He indicated that he could not expect very much from the Government in relation to this matter. The figures given in the Irish Centre booklet contradict the Minister's suggestion that emigration is declining. Each figure given shows an increase. If we look at the figures for the number of those who went to the Irish Centre in London looking for accommodation we find that in 1973 the figure was 1,459, in 1974 it was 1,475 and last year it was 2,015. The figures in this booklet do not show the actual casualties in London.
The efforts of the Government to provide some kind of welfare service are practically non-existent. Some years ago, to our eternal shame, people had to draw attention to the plight of some of the young people. The Government have promised a youth policy but we are still awaiting it. The National Youth Council of Ireland, who are backed to some extent by the State, have continually called on the Government to produce some kind of youth policy. We want to show our youth that we care for the future of those unemployed and that if we can provide good employment for them in this country we will do so. We should also show them that if some of them must emigrate we will see that they are properly trained and have a good education to enable them to obtain jobs when they go to England.
A couple of weeks ago two Labour Ministers in the Government called for radical action in relation to our economic ills. I suggest that this is the first area where radical action could be taken. This would then ensure that our young people are given employment here if possible and that we would provide extended educational services for them. We could very easily provide in the primary and secondary schools, as I suggested some time ago, an extra two-year period of vocational training. We should do this in conjunction with AnCO and the educational authorities. We all know that many young people leave primary schools at 15 years of age. If they were given two years' extra training and paid some money during that period it would encourage them to avail of this training. Male students leaving school at the moment get some money but the girls do not.
The Government make a boast of their law-and-order policy. I suggest it should be part of any democratic Government's job to ensure that a law-and-order policy exists. Many of our neglected young people find themselves in the hands of subversives who promise them that if they succeed in their violence we will have a different country. Some of our youth have become the victims of this terrible policy. The Government must bear responsibility for this. I do not want to blame the Government unfairly in this matter because I know we have all some responsibility. However, the Government are failing our youth who are losing faith in their country and going abroad. The Minister may say that they are coming back again. I know some of them do but many do not.
We have a new type of emigration now, that is youth emigration. Some of them have their parents consent when they leave but many of them do not. The Minister last week criticised the parents for not exercising control. I am loath to do that because the vast majority of parents do the best for their families but when the young people are at home without jobs they cannot stop them from going away. The Government should be able to say that they will give them jobs, or that they will give them extra training so that if they must go away they will not go as hewers of wood and drawers of water but having some expertise.
The British economy is depressed at the moment and this makes it all the more essential that we should keep our young people at home if possible. When the British economy was buoyant there were good opportunities for young people and many of them could better themselves in England but that is not the case nowadays. Irish boys and girls going into the British labour market are in competition with thousands of young English, Welsh and Scottish boys and girls. Their chance of good employment is, therefore, very much reduced. It may be said that because we are in Opposition now we criticise. We have always criticised the cause of emigration and tried to do something to curb it. No doubt the Minister will tell us what the Government are doing. Then we will see what a pitiful effort this is. Perhaps they think there are no votes to be got from exiles and once they are gone they can forget about them. Their very existence is embarrassing.
If we have any faith in the future of this country we must take the radical action called for by the Tánaiste and the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Cluskey. They called for it even though they are members of the Government. They are not in Opposition now. If they took radical action to cure our economic ills, they would get backing from the vast majority of the people. If they sit back and say they are giving a few thousand pounds for welfare and that they will repatriate a certain number of people, that is not tackling the problem. To tackle the problem they must provide gainful employment. That is the first essential step. This book which was published in November last gives our unemployment figure as 103,000, but the figure is 120,000 now.
The greatest casualties in our faltering economy now are our young girls and boys who are forced to leave the country. Some of our best go because they will not remain idle here. Perhaps they are lost to us for ever. They are spending their formative years in the streets of London and other British cities, the victims of a vicious social system. We stand by and blame the parents. This is not good enough. We must take the radical action called for by the Tánaiste to arrest this haemorrhage of the youth of the country. By radical action I mean providing employment and training. Let us not fall into a complacent mood and ignore the fact that our young people are leaving.
I should like to add my voice to what has been said by Deputy Moore. I worked with a voluntary body the members of which often had to travel on the emigrant ship with our young people emigrating to Great Britain. They inquired whether they had employment and whether anybody was waiting for them at the docks. Such sadness and frustration. It is sad that we are now returning to that position. The Government have a definite responsibility in this area. On a number of occasions I have appealed to the Government to deal with this matter. Nobody should say that we cannot provide some employment for our young people. Young people could be employed on worthwhile services for the community.
The week before last I put down a question asking the Minister for Labour to introduce some emergency scheme to create employment. This year 38,000 young people will do their intermediate certificate and 48,000 their leaving certificate. I say without fear of contradiction that very few young people can continue with their education. Because of unemployment, parents are unable to pay for them to continue with their education. I hope the Government realise the frustration which is building up in young people. We hear talk of vandalism, and bank robberies, and so on. We are encouraging this. Imagine a young boy or a young girl walking the streets from early morning until late at night in search of employment. Imagine their frustration. I have warned the Government. I have warned the parents. I have warned everybody. This frustration is building up and will be of great danger in years ahead unless the Government are prepared to face their responsibilities. Deputy Moore pleaded with the Minister to ensure that the Department of Education will release their policy document on youth development. On a number of occasions I have asked the Department of Education to release this document.
I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy. The subject matter of the question is the reports from the Irish Centre at Camden Town. I should be grateful if the Deputy would relate his remarks more closely to the subject matter of the question.
I know the terrible dangers which are building up in our young people. I want to compliment the Irish organisations in Great Britain on their dedication and their efforts to help our young people in Great Britain. What are we doing to help such organisations? I would ask the Minister what he has in mind to help the organisations who are helping our young people and advising them. Many of the organisations I know are trying to get our young people to continue with their education, or trying to make some provision to send them back home when they are on the streets of London with no place to go and no one to turn to. I should like to pay tribute to them because I know the tremendous work they are doing to help our young people. I say this because somebody must plead with the Government to deal with this matter. We cannot turn our heads away from it. Before it is too late I would ask the Minister to use his influence with the Government to have a definite policy to provide employment for our young people.
Deputy Moore was good enough to say the reply I gave him was frank. At the same time he said I was complacent in what I said. I should like to reject that. In that connection, may I quote what I said in reply to Deputy Moore's last supplementary. I said:
During the last three years the statistical evidence is that there is not net emigration to Britain. Certainly some are going but as many are coming back. It is only in the last three years of this Government that net emigration to Britain has come to an end. This does not resolve the problem. There is still a problem of young people.
These are the facts. Net emigration on the basis of the official figures furnished by the Central Statistics Office has ceased to exist as a problem. It is important that everybody should understand that the fact that there is no longer a net outflow from Ireland, that in fact for the past three years under the Coalition there has been a net inflow, does not mean that the problem——
The figures are there.
——of young people leaving this country unprepared for the conditions they face in England or elsewhere does not exist. There can be no complacency about this but it is right that we should see it in context. The facts are that in the five years to 1971 the total net emigration from Ireland—these are figures derived from the census so that they are absolutely accurate and reliable—were 53,000 people, or more than 10,000 per year. It was a continuing haemorrhage of our population each year. During the first three years of the Coalition there was a net immigration averaging just over 3,000—the figures were 2,073, 4,074 and 4,075. From a national point of view it is important that the tide has been stemmed but it does not mean that there is not still a problem of young people leaving this country ill-prepared for the conditions they face elsewhere. Deputy Moore was quite right to draw attention to this point.
It is interesting in this connection to see the actual figures for one year in respect of which we have accurate information—that is for April, 1970, to April, 1971. In that year during the Fianna Fáil Government there was net emigration of 4,000 but that small figure masked a gross outflow of 29,000 people, offset by a gross inflow of 25,000 people. Of course, a large proportion were students going away for brief periods during the summer and others may have been people who were involved in long-term strikes. It was a practice in those years when Fianna Fáil were in Government that people went to Britain to work when they were on strike. Only a proportion of the figures given were people going to work for any length of time in Britain but the quite small figure of 4,000 masked a very large number of people who had to leave here to find work in Britain.
There is a problem and Deputy Moore was right to draw attention to it. Nonetheless, Fianna Fáil are in no position to criticise the Government for failure to deal with the problem of emigration in view of the fact that there was no year when they were in office when there was not a substantial net emigration. Since the Coalition took office there has been a net immigration——
That is not an answer.
It is useful to draw attention to the problem. We know that there are real problems and the report indicates their gravity. From a national point of view, the fact that more people are returning to Ireland than are leaving is good but it still leaves a real difficulty and some of the comments in the report should be taken to heart by all of us. They reflect the failures of our society over the last 20 years, and we know who was in Government for most of that period. There is the problem of young people leaving the country who are illiterate. As the report states:
Many boys who were interviewed for jobs were sent back to us because, for example, they were unable to read the labels on the guests' luggage at hotels.
That is the heritage we have from a long period of Government during which educational problems were neglected. It is a serious problem.
There is also the problem of psychiatric illness. Reference was made in the report to the remarkable increase in respect of psychiatric illnesses for which it was difficult to account. The disorders include a variety of depressive and schizophrenic states and psychoneuroses. The point was made that three cases came to light during the year where people were discharged from institutions here without notification to their immediate relatives. They were encouraged to go to London with vague directions about contacts there. In one case they were brought by the police, and in two other cases by the railway police, to the attention of the centre. This is not good enough. It is a problem we must tackle to make sure it does not recur.
There is also the problem of single mothers and this is a matter our society has not tackled adequately. However, in the last few years there has been a realisation of our duties to people who find themselves in this position. That realisation is reflected in the Government's policy to provide allowances for single mothers, something that was long overdue. The concern shown by the Hierarchy at their current meeting at Maynooth with regard to this problem, and their concern to change the climate of opinion so that young girls who find themselves in this situation will not feel compelled to leave out of fear of the attitude of their families, friends and society, is a most encouraging development. It will help, together with what the Government have done in this matter, to diminish this very serious problem. It is all the more serious now because of the growing propaganda in favour of abortion and the increasing number of young people who are deluded into seeking this solution to this problem.
There are these social problems in our society and we should not blink at them. They need to be tackled and Deputy Moore was right to draw attention to a report which highlights the problems. The mere fact that we have reversed the tide of emigration does not resolve the social problems. There are many individuals who still have to emigrate. They may have to do so only for a period but during that time they may find themselves in grave difficulties because we have not prepared them adequately for the situation they are facing.
The problem is one that may be somewhat aggravated at present in Britain by anti-Irish feeling and this is referred to in the report. It mentions two organisations that complained about the so-called limitless social security and special privileges allegedly available to Irish citizens. It refers more directly to the question of feeling against Irish people and it makes it clear that this has been intensified by the political activities of the IRA which have certainly made life much more difficult for Irish people in Britain.
We have to face this problem. I mentioned in the House the other day the kind of action we were taking to deal with it and it may be worth while to recapitulate these points. We have a repatriation scheme funded by the Department so that people who find themselves without resources can be brought back to their families in Ireland. This operates on a quite significant scale and any funds necessary are made available by the Government.
There are grants to emigrant bureaux in Ireland which advise persons proposing to emigrate to Britain. These bureaux do very useful work and it is important that they be assisted. Our staff in the London embassy are available for assistance and advice and the National Manpower Service of the Department of Labour assist by advertising among Irish emigrants in Britain about job openings here. This is increasingly important because during this period when net immigration rather than emigration is the pattern a growing number of people are coming back to this country to take up jobs. It is important that when jobs are available here that Irish people in Britain should be alerted to them and should have an equal chance with those who have remained at home. The fact that they had to emigrate because of deficiencies in our society should not deprive them of the chance of finding out about jobs here and applying for them. The work we do in this regard is important.
There is also the problem of what happens when people return here and in this connection there is a scheme for the resettlement of emigrants. It provides very effective benefits for those returning permanently to Ireland. However, I do not think we have resolved this problem completely because there are still problems with regard to housing. I am sure Deputy Moore is familiar with the problem of people returning here who cannot get accommodation until a certain period has elapsed. The Dublin Corporation, of which the Deputy is a member, are looking at this problem to see if they can alleviate the somewhat stringent terms that apply in these cases. There have been some instances where mothers with families have come back here where the father has deserted them and they have to lodge in terribly overcrowded conditions with their in-laws. They have to wait for quite a time before they are entitled to go on the corporation housing list. There are some things that we and the local authorities can do to help with the resettlement of those people.
There is also the question of whether extra assistance is required in London by way of social welfare officers—perhaps Irish social welfare officers assisting social welfare officers in Britain. At the moment we are examining this matter to see if such a need exists and whether such people would be useful. If so, the Government will take the necessary action.
We are dealing with these matters but that is at the British end of the problem. Deputy Moore and Deputy Wyse are right to say that we have to tackle it at this end also. We must try to ensure that jobs are available here. We have not figures for 1975 but we have them for 1974. From the Department of Labour survey which covered 84 per cent of the 1974 school leavers, we know that only 3 per cent had to emigrate in the first year of the greatest economic crisis the western world has faced in half a century. That is a remarkable figure and it shows the extent to which we are providing employment here.
As Deputy Moore and Deputy Wyse pointed out, the problem can be resolved. Training courses provided by AnCO involved training for 7,000 people in 1975 and this year it will be 9,000. There is also the new community youth training programme and a pilot scheme was inaugurated in the eastern region in 1975 for 100 persons. We hope to increase that to 1,000 in 1976. This is action by the Government, action on the lines advocated by the Deputies opposite——
It is too little and too late.
The time allowed for this debate is quite exhausted.
After only three years in Government we have been able to reverse the overall tide. We have taken action in so many areas relevant to the issues raised by Deputy Moore and this suggests that although the Deputy had the right to raise this matter he was not perhaps achieving a great political advantage for his party. I am grateful to him for having raised the matter because it is a serious problem and it would be quite wrong if there were any suggestion of complacency on the part of the Government in regard to this problem.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 11th March, 1976.