asked the Minister for Labour the role of his Department, since December 1982, in encouraging and achieving job creation as part of Government policy; if there has been a section of his Department responsible for creating ideas and opportunities for unemployed people; the relationship his Department have with the Department of Industry and Commerce in the area of job creation; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna-Questions. Oral Answers. - Job Creation.
21.
The Department contribute to the Government job creation policy mainly in two ways: improvements in industrial training and in the expansion of employment schemes. One other area of the work of the Department can also affect job creation, that is, of helping to maintain good industrial relations.
As regards industrial training all programmes are kept under review and are modified or terminated, depending on shifts in demand. In certain circumstances, new programmes may be required. Since 1984 AnCO have launched the skills foundation programme for less qualified young school leavers and the alternance work experience/training scheme for the longterm unemployed.
In the case of employment schemes, three major new measures were introduced: the enterprise allowance scheme to encourage unemployed people to set up their own businesses, the social employment scheme for the long term unemployed, both of which are administered by the National Manpower Service and the Community Enterprise Programme, which is administered by the Youth Employment Agency.
In addition to these new measures, participation in existing training and employment schemes has been expanded. The net result is that on average 45,250 persons will be on employment and training schemes during 1986.
A planning and policy unit has been established in my Department and provides an economic advice service. Research units exist in AnCO and the Youth Employment Agency. In addition, the relevant sections and manpower agencies conduct analysis of manpower programmes as part of their normal duties.
Contacts between my Department and those concerned with industry and job creation are maintained at three levels: at ministerial level, through Cabinet deliberations and the Government Task Force on Employment: at departmental level, through the normal interdepartmental consultative process in areas of common interest such as the White Paper on Industrial Policy and the proposed White Paper on Manpower Policy. The Department also service the Manpower Consultative Committee on which the major industrial-job creation interests are represented. The third area is at operational level where there are direct contacts between the various manpower bodies and the industrial agencies such as the IDA, SFADCo and CTT.
As I mentioned at the outset, the state of our industrial relations can also have a major impact on job creation. The Deputy will be aware of the Ministers proposals to reform the industrial relations framework which have been circulated to both sides of industry.
All the agencies the Minister mentioned are in operation and are known to the public, but my question asked what they have achieved for the unemployed by encouraging job creation in the past three years. In my view they have done very little: the facts and statistics speak for themselves. What is the function of the unit in the Department? I understand there is very little liaison between the Department of Labour and the Department of Industry and Commerce at official level. The Minister's reply says there is liaison at Cabinet level, but that means nothing unless there is a memorandum from his Department before the Government. This is the most important point: would the Minister accept that while there is a unit in the Department of Labour, one in AnCO, another in Manpower and yet another in the Youth Employment Agency, all doing their own thing, there is no coordination and no one plan for job creation coming from the Department of Labour? Would the Minister consider as a matter of urgency amalgamating all the research units and think tanks — five in total — and putting them into one office to do something constructive?
The Deputy has put his finger on the difference between employment policy and manpower policy. In his contribution on 24 May 1985 he recognised that the Department of Labour have very little input into actual job creation.
The Department of Industry and Commerce, and I stand over that.
The agencies mentioned can be very confusing to people who do not have experience of each of them. In relation to manpower and manpower policy, the White Paper before the Government will undoubtedly take those points into account so that there might be a streamlined, cohesive, unified approach to a manpower policy operating at Government level.
Would the Minister agree that the reason the Government failed in the last three years to bring forward a manpower White Paper for the first time in 21 years is that the people who have been advising the Department of Labour have a vested interest. I accept the Minister's goodwill in this area, but he has five different organisations advising him, all with a major vested interest. Is it not time to recognise the principle that, until those five units are abolished and there is one unit looking at ideas and opportunities for the unemployed, we will get nowhere and the Government cannot even get a White Paper through Cabinet because of that? Does the Minister acknowledge that?
I do not accept that the agencies should be abolished because of their failure——
The research units.
I will take into account what the Deputy said. Everybody would appreciate having a unified and cohesive approach to a manpower policy; that is the reason for the complexity of the manpower policy paper which is before Government. I hope the Government's proposal in this regard will take into account the point the Deputy has mentioned and give a streamlined approach to this important area.
In the Book of Estimates which funds all these agencies the Department of Labour have sole authority to decide what is funded. It seems ludicrous where units have failed totally to do anything in the job creation area and not much in the training area to continue funding organisations who are coming up with ideas in competition with what the Minister is trying to do. I will give one example out of 25 that I could give. The LINC programme is being organised by one agency and COMTEC by another. Those are two research units in direct opposition to each other. I raised this issue in the House 18 months ago and they are still operating. When will the Department of Labour, the Minister and the Minister of State stop this scandal?
With the number of agencies operating at present there is an overlap of information, and confusion abounds in the public mind. The points raised by the Deputy have been raised in this House by many Deputies. They will be taken into consideration before the report on manpower policy is published by the Government. I assure the Deputy that at departmental and ministerial level any contact between the Department of Labour and the Department of Industry and Commerce receives genuine consideration and a very high level of activity.