asked the Minister for Labour the date of the last meeting of the Employment Action Team and if he envisages any further role for the team.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Employment Action Team.
9.
The Employment Action Team and their various working groups have met on 78 occasions. The last meeting of the team took place on 30 November 1978.
The team were set the task of establishing a programme which would provide opportunities for 5,000 young people. The proposals submitted to me by the team provided for opportunities well in excess of that number. The team can, therefore, be said to have completed their task and deserve to be complimented on their achievement.
As indicated in my speech on the Department's Estimates I now regard the team's job as terminated and I do not propose to continue the team in existence.
Would the Minister accept that the Employment Action Team was really much ado about nothing?
This is not a question for argument.
Would the Minister accept that many of the job opportunities to which the Minister referred were short-term jobs of perhaps four weeks' duration?
We have to make some progress.
What is the average length of each job opportunity created as a result of the suggestion?
That question does not apply. It is a separate question. The question refers to the date of the last meeting of the Employment Action Team. The Chair is concerned with the question on the Order Paper.
The Minister said that so many thousand job opportunities were created. Could he tell the House the average duration of each job opportunity?
That is a separate question.
The Deputy knows well that I spelled out in full detail in my Estimate speech this morning the progress made by the team, the schemes suggested by them, the Government's approval for those schemes and the fact that they had made a very worthwhile contribution. I also said—the House should be aware of this—that an important consideration was that jobs, be they temporary or otherwise, at a time of acute unemployment, are all important. The team were only part of the employment package of the manifesto. They have served us well and they deserve to be complimented, not criticised.
Would the Minister not accept, now that the Employment Action Team have been declared officially dead, that this is now the first phase of phasing out the bloody manifesto?
I cannot permit argument.
I would like to say to the Deputy that in my Estimate speech this morning I said that I thought that this was now an appropriate role to be continued by the Manpower Consultative Committee.