The first thing one is struck by in the House this evening is that there is an almost unearthly silence about the place. There are very few of us here to express our concern about what is a very serious problem, and there are not many young people in the gallery listening to us express our concern about their problems. Perhaps this is due to a number of factors. Perhaps the Deputies who put down this motion did not give sufficient publicity to it and perhaps the newspapers did not highlight the fact that in Dáil Éireann at the moment we are discussing what is recognised to be in most homes in the country a very serious problem and what imposes on us as legislators an obligation to try to find a solution to it. Either this is or is not a relevant issue. Are we or are we not playing politics? When the debate has concluded I should like to think that we will be able to say we did not play politics with so serious an issue and that what we are doing is looking for a solution to the problem. It is regrettable that the young people are not here to listen to us. Many of them have come to us many times in an effort to express their real concern, their frustration, their impatience and, I expect, their hopes for something better. I trust that in some little way we can prove our concern and our capacity to deal with their problems.
I agree with much of what Deputy O'Brien has said. Obviously, we will not reach the same conclusion because if he wishes to present an apologia pro vita nostra on the part of the Government, I shall present the other side of the picture. I agree with him that it is not possible to deal with the question of youth employment in isolation, that it must be considered in the context of general economic planning and of general education planning. These are the first two principles. So far as economic planning is concerned I must support what the Deputy said in regard to the great need here, as in every other country, for a comprehensive economic plan so that the public can recognise in which direction our economy and our society are moving and what place there is for us in that direction. In the absence of such a plan neither we nor the public generally can know the direction in which we are leading and in the meantime all they can do is wait and wonder rather aimlessly.
I have no wish to be party political in this but I shall merely reaffirm what Deputy O'Brien has said. If we are to tackle employment on a broad basis we must have a comprehensive economic plan, thereby ensuring a place for our young people in that plan. There is either of two roles for our young people. One is that of guarantor of our future while the other is that of a threat to our future. They will be the guarantors of our future to the extent that we provide a place for them in that future. Long after many of us who are here now have passed on they will be the ones who will be living in the new Ireland. Therefore, they have a greater stake, a greater call on what we do. In the event of our failing them they will be a threat to our future. I am not endeavouring to relate this aspect too directly to the lack of employment opportunity but it can be said that youth problems, as they are called, have become more critical in the past five or ten years. I am not confining the problem to the term of office of this Government. The situation will worsen as the unemployment problem becomes greater whereas there will be an improvement if employment opportunities are available. Therefore, we are talking not only of the provision of jobs for our young people but of the provision of security and stability for our society. Should we fail to provide that security and stability they will be a danger to society.
It is not really our function during this debate to go into the issue of overall economic planning. That is something that can be debated on the Finance Bill but it is a matter of vital importance. The second front that we must consider is the area of education, while the third is the problem of youth out of work or lacking recreational facilities. All three areas are interrelated. We will not have a secure and stable society nor will we have the right environment for our young people unless these three areas are dovetailed, one with the other.
As Deputy O'Brien has acknowledged, there is no comprehensive plan for employment. It is not sufficient to say that some Minister, whether in this Government or in the last, came back from Japan, America or Canada with the prospect of the creation of 50,000 jobs. That is not planning. If it is merely a question of a Minister going to a foreign place and coming back with jobs for our boys and girls, our society is in a sorry state. There is much more than that to this whole question. In other words, it is no answer to the problem to talk in terms of jobs borrowed from abroad.
The question of second level education is one I should like to deal with in some detail as it is particularly relevant to the problem we are discussing. Again, I agree with Deputy O'Brien—this is something I have believed in for a long time—when he says that our educational structure is very much part of the key to all this trouble. To illustrate simply to, unfortunately, this almost empty House, I would point out that in our experience of meeting young people who are seeking work we encounter many school leavers who have their leaving certificate with, perhaps, honours in some subjects but not many people on leaving second level education will have specialist technical qualifications. Most of those young people who are out of work now are those who have come through the academic stream but who, because of their not having specialist or technical qualifications, find it very difficult to get jobs. Many of them are prepared to take any kind of work. Consequently, we must ask ourselves how we can change this emphasis. Opportunities are available for boys and girls who are trained suitably and these people, by reason of their own capacity, create jobs.
Here, I must be critical although not in any political sense. I had hoped that in our time in Government we had recognised this problem. I am not saying that this was a flash of inspiration on the part of Fianna Fáil. Rather, the situation had become so obvious that any Government would have recognised it and would have seen the need for restructuring education at every level in order to activate the capacity of pupils to realise their potential. We recognised the need for a comprehensive plan at every level of education. We began at primary level by introducing the new curriculum which was designed to allow children to find their own capacity, to generate their own activities and to generate the confidence to do things as distinct from simply reacting to what was dished out to them by the teachers in the old days. Hence, there was a whole new excitement at primary level. I saw it. We all saw it. Now you had children doing things. Whether it was painting, drawing, sketching, modelling, they were doing and this was the important thing. They were not just responding or reacting. It was a very important breakthrough. I do not think it involved any flash of inspiration. You brought that on to second level and, at that level, we recognised there was a need to introduce a new element and give to all these children who came through the first and second streams ultimately the same range of choice in activity which would train them for life and provide them with opportunities for life.
Education is not just something to equip one for a job. Education is something that should make one a complete human being. Education does not consist in just academic subjects. Both forms of education are vitally important. Both should be interdependent. Up to a few years ago the balance was on the so-called academic side. We developed the idea of comprehensive education through our community and comprehensive schools. These were designed very deliberately to change the existing structure because it needed to be changed.
Now it is very easy to misrepresent what I am saying here. It will be said: "All those of you who are involved in conventional education, take note; Fianna Fáil are at it again." Let them say to the nuns and brothers and priests that some Fianna Fáil spokesman has once again said we, in Fianna Fáil, are going to change it all. The statement is made in that way solely to misrepresent. Those involved in our educational structure have a tremendous role to play in a new educational era. Academic education will not be neglected and neither will the important role the religious have played be unrecognised and uncommended. However, the role now should be a combination of the academic and the specialist and we developed this idea so that all the talents of all the children would be catered for and they would be trained to think and to analyse and inform themselves of all the beauties of life and at the same time do and act and create opportunities in the specialist areas that are so important. That was the community school idea.
I do not want to go into too much detail but it is sad that this Government, for some reason I cannot understand, changed all that—indeed, not just changed it but undermined the whole idea. In my own constituency— I say this at the risk, perhaps, of some electoral unpopularity, but I will say it anyway because if we are not prepared to be honest and courageous, then we should get out of this House— we had a community school almost planned for Thurles. The Fine Gael Minister on taking office, after all the trouble in Athy and other places, announced a compromise and that compromise involved, instead of the community school idea, a little bit for the Department of Education, a little bit for the nuns and brothers, and a little bit for a technical school and one had a proposed bastard institution that meant nothing to anybody and eventually it died a bastard death and we still have nothing. Have we no confidence in where we are going? Do we always have to react to the fears that can be whipped up by people who want to do the same things they always did, people who do not believe in our future?
In third level then we had the technological colleges, a place for development. We had something that was badly needed—a new attitude towards specialist technical education, as instanced by the role we envisaged for the National Institute of Higher Education separate—oh, so separate—from the universities. I have no blame for our universities. Like the Parliamentary Secretary, I am a product of them. But I recognise their limitations. They are autonomous. They design what they will do in their courses and disciplines and no Government can tell them how to design and cater in their courses and disciplines for the national need and the national opportunity. If any attempt is made, they will say that is not their function. They are independent.
We established the notion and the concept of higher education and we established the National Institute for Educational Awards. Here was a new concept in line with what had been done in other countries by means of which we could create opportunities tailored to the national need. Once again—I just do not understand it; I honestly admit that—the Government killed the idea and they brought this sphere of higher education back under the universities. I do not know if they knew where they were going at that level. They turned back the clock. We ran the risk—we are no more courageous than they are—of the flak we got about the community school in Athy and we had got to the stage where we were overcoming the alleged drawbacks and this Government came in, inherited the foundations we had laid, and turned the clock back. That is how we stand now. Hence the reality.
Education is not training our young people up to third level. We have graduates coming out of university looking for jobs—any jobs. We have second level students coming out looking for jobs—any jobs. That should not be and need not be the case because with proper training and qualifications they will create the jobs. If they do not do that this country it doomed. That is why education is so crucial.
So much for formal education. I do not attribute blame to the Parliamentary Secretary personally for what the Government have done to youth programmes, youth activity and youth welfare. Give youth motivation and youth will respond. Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí. They will not ask us to give them jobs. They will create the jobs.
What happened to our youth programmes? In 1966 the National Youth Council was established with the intention of giving youth organisations a direct say and a voice to Government. 5This was badly needed. Youth organisations could say they had a direct voice to Government through the youth council. In 1969, the Parliamentary Secretary—my predecessor, Deputy Bobby Molloy—was given special responsibility for youth and recreation generally. The two are not unrelated. The voluntary organisations so actively involved in all this area needed to be recognised for the contribution they could make to the welfare and well-being of our society and we saw that particular responsibility as being just another step in the right direction. I followed Deputy Molloy in that responsibility and subsequently created the National Sports Council directed towards youth, all part of an on-going development. The enthusiasm and commitment I saw in those years in these voluntary organisations catering for youth were things of which our country could be proud.
