asked the Taoiseach if he will ask the National Planning Board to recommend short-term emergency measures to alleviate unemployment.
2.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - National Planning Board.
1.
asked the Taoiseach (a) when the report of the National Planning Board will be available; (b) the status these recommendations will have; (c) when the Government will issue their own proposals arising out of the report; and (d) if the Dáil will be allowed sufficient time to debate the report in full.
3.
asked the Taoiseach the relationship there is between the National Planning Board and the group preparing the industrial strategy plan; and if he has made arrangements for co-ordinating both approaches to our economic difficulties.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together.
The alleviation of unemployment will be one of the main objectives of the recommendations being prepared by the planning board.
The National Planning Board intend that their report will be ready by end March-early April next. The recommendations in this report will be for consideration by the Government. Pending receipt of the report it is obviously impossible to say when the Government will issue their own proposals arising from its recommendations.
The question of making available time for a Dáil debate is one for consideration in the normal way between the party Whips and could perhaps best be discussed when the report becomes available.
As far as the industrial policy dimension of the National Planning Board's proposals is concerned, the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism has met representatives of the National Planning Board on two occasions recently to ensure a co-ordinated approach to this area.
The Taoiseach has answered three questions together, so I should like to put a number of supplementary questions to him, if I may.
Start off with one, Deputy.
I knew the Ceann Comhairle would be considerate. I want to ask the Taoiseach in view of——
All these figures are not impeding us, I see.
——yesterday's figures, which show that the number of unemployed have increased by 7,600 in just one month, that there are now 67,000 under the age of 25 unemployed and that we have lost over 12,000 jobs in our manufacturing industry in the past 12 months, would he not now agree that there is an economic unemployment emergency here? Would he instruct the National Planning Board not to wait until April, but to give him some immediate proposals to deal with unemployment which is now at a critical stage? Industry is falling apart.
A question, please, Deputy.
We cannot wait until April for conditions to improve. Would the Taoiseach ask the Planning Board to give him specific measures in the next week or two, to try to reduce unemployment?
I do not think that that would be a sensible way to proceed. The board's terms of reference are available to the House and set out what we have asked them to do. That is in the context of preparing a medium-term economic programme and to attempt to divert them from that task to produce ad hoc solutions in reaction to particular figures would be inappropriate and foolish.
Does the Taoiseach not agree that the figures published yesterday demonstrate a very drastic situation? When the numbers were 50,000 less, he described it as a disaster. With 50,000 more, it is obviously more of a disaster. Therefore, pretty urgent measures are necessary, not measures which will be part of a mid-term plan. Before the Taoiseach replies to that question, he announced some time ago the setting up of a ministerial task force to tackle unemployment. How many meetings have they held and what progress have they made?
On the last point, I would need notice of the question to ascertain precisely when the meetings were held. The task force have made progress and have announced some schemes already. They have at the moment other schemes under consideration, some of which will mature in the immediate future.
With regard to the planning board, I do not think that they should be diverted from their function. I recognise that the unemployment figures in December and January have shown a sharp increase. As in preceding months since March, the increase for these two months has been less than for the same period last year. We can take only limited consolation from that in view of the magnitude of the rise.
Would the Taoiseach please outline to the House what steps his Government have taken since coming into office 14 months ago to create jobs for adults and young people? How many have been created by this Government in that time? What steps do his Government intend to take in view of the fact that the total figure has gone up by 45,000 since they assumed office and that the number of young people unemployed has grown by 20,000?
These appear to be different questions.
Surely they are relevant to the greatest problem facing us at present?
They are not related to the questions on the Order Paper.
Surely they are relevant to Question No. 1? What steps have been taken and what steps are being taken — in other words, what are the Government doing, other than bluffing?
If the Deputy would put down a question, I should be happy to answer it.
The Government have no answer.
The number of steps taken by the Government in both budgets and in between has been considerable. I certainly could not list them all off the top of my head in reply to a question which does not directly arise from the one here.
That is the first time that the Taoiseach was ever stuck for words.
In order to help the Taoiseach, could I ask him to specify the steps in the current budget? Could he say what specific steps were taken for job creation in that budget and how many jobs does he expect to be created as a result of it?
First of all, I have always doubted——
That is to encourage the Taoiseach to give an answer.
A Deputy
Look at the waffling.
I think that goes badly for the Deputy. I have always doubts about attempting to put figures on the results of specific policy measures. Many of our present difficulties derive from that bad habit of the preceding Government which purported——
Deputies
Hear, hear.
——to say that the measures they were taking——
There must be several of them.
——would yield a 7 per cent gross rate year after year and bring inflation down to 5 per cent.
(Interruptions.)
Different from what the present Government are doing.
As a result various State bodies were misled into scales of investment which have involved hundreds of millions of pounds, indeed I would estimate probably about one-and-a-half billion pounds of expenditure, which has been either wasted or was premature. Therefore, I do not propose to follow that particular course. The budget contained a number of measures related to employment. Details of them will be found set out in that part of my speech which deals with the employment generating effects of the budget and I would refer the Deputy to it.
May I ask a final supplementary——
Might I tell the Deputy that while he may be given or allowed more than one supplementary, they are not necessarily given in sequence.
The problem has been aggravated by the appalling figures released yesterday showing an increase——
The Deputy cannot make a speech. He will have an opportunity in Private Members' Time to say all of that.
Might I have an opportunity by way of Private Notice Question seeing that I am being disallowed here?
The Deputy can always try.
All right, I will do that.
Has the Taoiseach read the Programme for Government which his Coalition partners put together when he said that they would take decisive action in relation to unemployment? Will he now take responsibility for the 45,000 people who have become unemployed since he became Taoiseach since 14 December 1982? Furthermore, is he aware that 17,500 people aged under 25 years became unemployed since he became Taoiseach? Will he state one step which he has taken to create one job for our people?
Is the Deputy's party taking responsibility for the other 200,000 unemployed?
I would take the same degree of responsibility for the increase in unemployment over the past year as the Deputies will take for the increase of unemployment at double the rate in the preceding year.
Where does the Deputy stand with regard to The Way Forward?
(Interruptions.)
If the Deputy keeps shouting he might get a car, he might get promotion.
Arising from the Taoiseach's statement today, and I quote him, when he said that it is impossible to say when the Government will issue their own proposals — will the Taoiseach reconcile that statement with the one made in the joint programme of over 14 months ago when unemployment stood at 45,000 less than it is now? At that point the Government were proposing and promising firm and decisive action — 14 months ago — and the Taoiseach is today telling us that it is impossible to say when the Government will issue their own proposals. I might add one further question: in the statement issued by the Government yesterday in response to this latest appalling increase in unemployment, it was said and I quote it——
The Deputy cannot quote at Question Time.
——for the information of the Taoiseach then——
No, it is not in order to quote at Question Time.
——when it was said that the only means, in the view of the Government to deal with this appalling human problem is improved competitiveness. Are the Taoiseach and the Government seriously telling this House that the only means they contemplate at this stage — apart from the whole range of issues open to them — is this cant about improved competitiveness?
How is it cant to improve competitiveness? I might refer the Deputy to his own speeches in the days when he appeared to believe them.
The Minister will have his turn in a moment. I will tell the Minister why it is a cant — every month it is the only thing they have to say along with increasing unemployment; that is why it is a cant.
(Interruptions.)
Deputies will have an opportunity on this topic this evening.
Will the Taoiseach reconcile those two statements, his own today that it is impossible to say when the Government will do something and, secondly, that the only means they contemplate is improved competitiveness?
If the Deputy is aware of other methods of creating sustainable employment than improving the competitiveness of the output of goods and services saleable at home or abroad, I would be grateful if he would produce this profound piece of wisdom to the House for inspection by the economic experts of the world.
I asked a question about the comprehensive national plan——
(Interruptions.)
On the second question, with regard to measures designed to create employment by improving competitiveness, yes. On the first question, with regard to the difficulty of saying when we will produce our own plan, I hope that the wording there does not suggest that there will be any delay in that. It is impossible to say precisely — because until we have the text of the national plan, the draft that we will receive from the National Planning Board, we cannot say exactly how long it will take the Government to examine this and produce their proposals. However, I have pointed out to the Government today, when we receive this document, the urgency of proceeding very rapidly to produce the plan based on that document. I can assure the Deputy that there will be no delay and that it will come out as soon as possible afterwards. But, until we see the text, one cannot be precise about the exact amount of time.
Who was elected, the Government or the National Planning Board?
That is argument. I am calling Deputy Lenihan.
On that precise point, would the Taoiseach agree with me and the House that the primary responsibility in an area of major social and economic importance such as employment and particularly that of our young people, must relate to the Government of the day through the instrument of the budget? Would the Taoiseach further agree that in the budget statement of his Minister for Finance there was no reference whatever to this serious problem now looming larger and larger? Finally would the Taoiseach agree that submitting this sort of serious matter, for which the Government bear primary responsibility, to a quango, such as the National Planning Board, constitutes no real answer to the problem and is an indication of the abdication of the Government with regard to their primary responsibility in this area?
The Government have primary responsibility and will take it. However, the Government believe — whatever people on the other side of the House may believe — that they do not have all the wisdom in these matters, that it is useful to get advice from bodies of this kind and to build on it. Indeed that was how this country's initial economic recovery from the disastrous stagnation of the fifties was generated, on the basis of a document prepared by Dr. Whitaker, on his advice to the Government of the day, published by the Government and made the foundation of the First Economic Programme. At this stage does the Deputy repudiate that and say that that was a wrong way to proceed? I do not think he does.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Séamus Brennan put down these three questions. I am giving him a final supplementary and that is the end of it.
We remember the fifties.
(Interruptions.)
——which changed one single item in Dr. Whitaker's document to do with cattle. The rest was word for word.
We remember the fifties when many emigrated and they will be doing the same again.
Another distortion of economic history.
In view of the very tragic nature of the figures released yesterday and the very human, critical story they tell of the many thousands of our people, would the Taoiseach consider doing two things: first of all, bringing forward urgently sections of this plan, or the plan itself, as a short-term measure to tackle the tragedy of yesterday's figures? Secondly, would he bring forward quickly some proposals of his task force to put a hole in this? It is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of human tragedy faced by thousands of people on the streets of Ireland today.
I accept the sincerity of the point the Deputy made. I am glad to avail of the opportunity to make a clear distinction between the work of the National Planning Board, which while primarily directed towards the question of employment is directed at it in the context of the medium-term, and the Government's responsibility for doing what it is possible to do in the short-term to deal with the problem, which included a number of other measures in the budget related to the industrial sector which received much welcome from that sector. It also includes other measures which will be announced by the task force which has responsibility for bringing forward proposals in the interim, pending the preparation of the medium-term plan. I am glad to have had the opportunity of making that clear.