Vol. 370 No. 4
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The National Employment and Training Authority Bill before the Dáil constitutes the legislative provisions arising from the White Paper on Manpower Policy published by the Government in September.
The recent White Paper is the most comprehensive statement of Government policy in the manpower field. A previous White Paper was published in 1965 but its content, scope and level of detail were much more limited than the present document.
Has the supply of scripts been exhausted?
I apologise for the fact that there are not enough copies. I am not sure what is the problem.
I accept the Minister's apology. Nevertheless we should be supplied with a script.
If the Deputy wishes to listen I will go ahead.
We are all anxious to see what is in the script.
If the Deputy would like to listen rather than follow me down the text, I will tell him.
I will go ahead of the Minister in the text.
Since 1965 the country has undergone major social and economic changes. In particular, we have moved from a situation of rapid economic growth into a prolonged period of recession and extremely rapid structural change. This has led to a large increase in unemployment from 7 per cent in 1965 to 17.9 per cent today. The unemployment problem has been exacerbated by demographic and social factors. In the 20 years since 1965 the population has grown by 653,000, an increase of almost a quarter, while the labour force has grown by about 150,000 influenced, to some extent, by the participation of women in the paid labour force.
The current level of unemployment remains unacceptably high. The growth in unemployment has, however, levelled out and seems to be stabilising. The increase in unemployment must be seen in the context of an increase in the labour force of 27,000 between April 1982 and April 1985.
Certain groups in the labour market such as the young unemployed and the long term unemployed suffer particular difficulties. As regards young people, employment and training programmes are at high levels since the introduction of the youth employment levy in 1982. In Ireland, the proportion of total unemployment accounted for by youth is now one of the lowest in the European Community despite our having proportionally the highest youth population of the member states.
Long term unemployment is now a major problem. Between April 1980 and April 1986, the number of long term unemployed in Ireland increased from 31,000 to 104,000 and now represent 44 per cent of all registered unemployed. I should explain the term "long term unemployed" is used to denote people who are 12 months or more without a job. About 25 per cent of the unemployed have been out of work for three years or more.
The general employment problem, and the particular problems of youth and long term unemployment, are not unique to Ireland. In the EC there are 16 million out of work and the figure for the OECD area is a staggering 31 million, nine times the population of Ireland. As a small, exposed and export-led economy, our ability to tackle the problem is greatly dependent on improvements in the economies of our European partners. For the EC and the OECD the projections are for an increase in the growth rate during the coming years. This will not, however, be adequate to reduce unemployment significantly. In Ireland the outlook is similar. In spite of increased growth there will be little prospect of a large scale decrease in unemployment in the immediate future.
In the 21 years since 1965 there have been major changes also in the occupational and industrial composition of our workforce. The numbers employed in the service sector have increased by over 160,000 and industrial employment has grown by 11,000. Agricultural employment, however, has fallen by a staggering 165,000.
All indications are for a continuing difficult employment situation accompanied by major changes with consequential effects for the labour market.
Quite apart, however, from the changes in the economic and social situation, the last 20 years have seen major changes in what we are doing in the manpower and related area. For example, in 1965, with the exception of CERT and vocational education schools, there was little or no training being done and AnCo were only on the drawing board. Today, AnCo are training nearly 15,000 people at any one time. In addition, we have the comprehensive and community schools, the regional technical colleges, the national institutes of higher education, and increased engineering and scientific capacity in the more traditional third level educational institutions. There has been the most extraordinary expansion in educational opportunities in that period.
There have been significant developments also in the assistance we provide to the young unemployed through permanent and temporary employment schemes, work experience and training. In 1981, the year before the establishment of the Youth Employment Agency, employment and training schemes catered for 22,500 young people. In 1986, employment and training schemes and the vocational preparation and training programme will cater for 66,500 young people.
In the period since Ireland joined the European Economic Community the form and orientation of our manpower programmes reflect not only domestic policy on maximising our resources, but also the influence of the European Social Fund and its structure. In the current year the inflow of about £120 million shows how the fund has served to increase the capacity of our employment and training schemes to a level that could not be sustained from our own funds.
Our manpower agencies have done and are doing a lot to facilitate the general economic development of our country and in particular, to help the unemployed. Despite the high unemployment rate, our labour force are better educated, trained and individually and collectively more productive than in 1965. In addition, a significant range of measures have been developed to assist the less advantaged and the unemployed. In 1986, on average over 40,000 are being assisted on various employment and training schemes.
On my entry to office as Minister for Labour, I undertook to put our approach to manpower policy in this country under the microscope. I recognised that this called for more than just another change of emphasis within an existing policy framework.
Manpower policy has a major contribution to make in reducing unemployment through the provision of a trained workforce and the administration of employment schemes. On its own, however, it cannot solve the problem and is but one element of an overall employment policy. New policy measures and new working methods are obviously needed to cope with the demands created by the labour market conditions I have described. On the basis of the policy objectives and the streamlined institutional arrangements contained in the White Paper, I am confident that manpower policy will in the future play a more central role in the development of our workforce and the continued fight against unemployment.
A number of important innovations characterise the integrated approach which will determine how our employment and training services must be planned and organised in the context of an active labour market policy. The White Paper has signalled eight important developments. These are: first, the significance of the emerging change in labour force structure as between different age categories; second that the allocation of training grants to industry will be based on a more selective and strategic approach; third the development of a more flexible, cost-effective, and relevant system of apprenticeship training; fourth that an integrated, comprehensive training system is necessary to provide the skills training necessary to meet the needs of our economy; fifth the practical arrangements which are needed to achieve greater co-operation between the education and manpower authorities in the transition from school to work and in the provision of vocational training and preparation; sixth how changes can be made in the range of employment schemes to improve their effectiveness and in the manner in which conditions reflect labour market circumstances. The Direct Action Programme is an example of how a consistent and systematic approach can target support to a particular category, like the long term unemployed, on the basis of co-ordination on the part of all the manpower services and the Department of Social Welfare; seventh, the need to develop a comprehensive programme of action to improve the level of access and the range of options available to women in the labour market and, eighth, the development of arrangements to decentralise and devolve the effective delivery of manpower services so as to improve their effectiveness at regional and local levels.
I am convinced that the new policy directions I have identified — and the improved penetration and effectiveness of existing services — can only be achieved by integrating the existing manpower agencies into one body. I know that I have the support of the vast majority of Members of the Dáil, if not all Members, in my belief. We have had very productive and constructive debates in this House on this topic over the last two to three years. This is in no way to be interpreted as a criticism of existing bodies, all of which were set up to do a particular job by different Administrations at different times.
There are compelling arguments supporting a single integrated organisation. There is confusion in the minds of the public as to who does what. At present manpower services are provided by four agencies, namely AnCO, CERT, the National Manpower Service and the Youth Employment Agency. The existence of four bodies makes it more difficult to establish clear priorities between various programmes and to place these activities within a comprehensive economic and social framework. The increasing rate of change demands quick decisions and points to the need for a single body rather than a four-pronged response. Finally, the establishment of a single body will lead to economies of scale and better integration.
The major part of the Bill before us is concerned with the establishment of this new body which will be called the National Employment and Training Authority. The new authority will take over functions at present exercised by the four existing agencies. Once the new authority are established, the four existing agencies will cease to exist.
It would be remiss of me during this address not to pay tribute to the excellent work done, and continuing to be done, by the staff of the existing manpower agencies. Many take legitimate and justifiable pride in the work of their organisations. Concern has been expressed over their entry into the new larger authority and whether it might affect their commitment and loyalty. It is my policy fully to maintain the high level of morale and dedication that is already there and utilise it to the fullest extent for the benefit of the country in a fully integrated body.
In brief, the functions of the authority listed in the Bill are training, retraining, administration of employment schemes, work experience programmes, placement services, assistance for co-operatives and small enterprises, and the operation of the EC free movement of worker provisions.
We are also taking the opportunity of providing for the possibility of using existing training expertise to help the economic development of newly industrialised countries. There are legal doubts as to whether AnCO has the power under the 1967 Industrial Training Act to operate abroad. The Bill contains a specific provision which gives the new authority power to undertake the provision of consultancy and manpower-related services overseas, but only on a strictly commercial basis. To ensure that this activity is carried out according to commercial criteria the authority is obliged to set up a separate subsidiary company for that purpose.
The structural weakness at the core of manpower policy has prompted criticism of the failure of Ministers and their Departments to exercise an effective policy-making role in relation to the State-sponsored bodies under their control. This criticism, familiar to Deputies, maintains that the policy role has been allowed by default to be discharged in practice by executive bodies. Such a failure results in the functions of the body not being properly located within a comprehensive economic and social framework. In parallel with the establishment of the new authority, I recognise that the Department of Labour need to be strengthened so as to assume responsibility for developing policy as envisaged in the White Paper and for monitoring performance and providing policy specifications to the new authority. In future, the central control and direction of policy will rest with the Minister and the Department of Labour. The authority will be responsible for the execution of policy already determined.
I accept that the distinction between policy formulation and policy execution is easier to draw in theory than in practice. The reality is that policy tends to evolve in part, at least, in the process of its execution. In that context the authority will also have an important input into policy and a legitimate role to play in advising on policy. In order to enable the Minister to exercise ultimate control, provision has been made in the Bill to enable him to issue directions and to request information in relation to any of their activities or expenditure.
In the legislation we are providing for the transfer of the staff in the existing four agencies to the new authority. We are also saying that there will be no lessening in pay or terms and conditions of service. It is my intention to minimise any uncertainty over the transfer. For this reason, I have asked the chairman of AnCO and the Youth Employment Agency, who is also the chairman designate of the new authority, to prepare an organisational structure for the new authority. This organisational structure will be available soon and will be communicated to the existing chief executives for discussions with their respective staffs early next month. The structure is not intended to pre-empt a decision by the new authority. Rather it is intended as a basis to minimise uncertainty and to assist the planning that will allow the authority to become operative as soon as possible. My intention is that the staff should be treated fairly, consistent with the proper functioning of the new authority.
The Government have also decided to convert the youth employment levy into a general employment and training levy. This decision was taken in the context of the changing age structure of the labour force and those who are unemployed. By 1990 over half the workforce will be in the 25-44 age group. This does not mean that there will be a consequent reduction in the provision for youth. The employment and training activity of youth will be determined in the light of prevailing levels of unemployment. The removal of the age restriction will, however, ensure a greater degree of flexibility in the allocation of resources in the years ahead and will enable programmes to be adjusted to take account of the changing needs of different unemployed age groups. It will also reduce the cumbersome administrative constraints required in the operation of schemes for those under and over 25 years old. In the foreseeable future, I would foresee a major youth dimension in the work of the authority.
Finally, I come to the question of the composition of the board of the new authority. In deciding upon this question I was influenced by the need to have those bodies active in the labour market represented on the board and, at the same time, ensure a small board consistent with effectiveness and efficiency. I have balanced these two objectives by opting for four employer representatives, four representatives from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, one youth representative, one representative each from the Departments of Education, Social Welfare and Labour, two employee members and two other representatives, including the chairman, to be appointed by myself. The employee members of the board will be elected by the staff of the authority as soon as possible after the establishment of the authority. Initially, therefore, the board will consist of 13 ordinary members. There are other options but this composition in my view, represents the best compromise between being representative and being effective.
I believe that enactment of the Bill before us will make a significant contribution to the development of our workforce and I commend it to the House.
Finally this Bill has come before the House. For years a number of people have been calling for this Bill, not least of them myself. The fact that Second Stage is being discussed today is to be welcomed. I wish to deal with a number of points in detail and on Committee Stage I will put down a number of amendments.
In principle, the Fianna Fáil Party support this Bill because it has been part of our policy for a number of years and since I became Labour spokesman I have been attempting to assist the Minister in bringing this through the various stages. I am sure the Minister will allow me look back to the last time we had an opportunity to discuss manpower legislation. On 2 December 1981, at Vol. 331, No. 5, column 959 of the Official Report when we were discussing the Youth Employment Agency, I said:
There is an absolute need that the agency have power. One of our main problems at present is that there is lack of co-ordination between the various bodies and that has tended to undermine a successful attack on youth unemployment. All the bodies concerned with youth unemployment are powerful in their own right with their own strong views and management and their own institutions which they are anxious to protect. It is hard to find any common ground between them. They all seem to give different sets of statistics. That is one of the great arguments for the establishment of one powerful agency. I presume those other bodies will not operate any more and that the Minister will ensure that there will be effective co-ordination between the schools, the agencies, placement services and Government Departments. I hope the existing institutions are broken up so as to ensure that there is just one body. That has always been my view.
I spoke at length on that day and on 8 December. Before I came into this House I dealt with youth bodies and I was convinced that the one thing we were not doing was implementing what Seán Lemass intended back in 1964-65. He made many fine speeches on how he intended manpower policy to develop in the sixties and the seventies. In the shortest White Paper every produced in this country, that on manpower policy in October 1965, there was set out how the late Deputy Seán Lemass foresaw manpower policy evolving in the sixties and the seventies. There is no doubt that the comments in that document referred to a different age. In his contributions in this House in the autumn of 1964 Deputy Seán Lemass made it very clear how he foresaw manpower policy evolving if the economic climate were to change. Perhaps politicians and administrators generally did not listen sufficiently to the late Deputy Seán Lemass. He made it clear that he always wished to see manpower policy evolve as a closely knit co-ordinated effort between industry on the one side, and training bodies on the other.
CERT had been in existence since 1963. AnCO were set up in 1967, then there was the National Manpower Service and in 1981 the Youth Employment Agency. I have been convinced for years that they have all been attempting to carry out the same task, their functions were never co-ordinated and they never used the same set of statistics. While I agree with the Minister that the introduction of this Bill is not a reflection on any individual or any of those bodies, the Manpower Bill of 1965 and the various agencies have outlived their usefulness. They were set up and intended for a different type of economic climate. I do not believe the people who worked on the 1965 White Paper ever intended manpower policy to disintegrate to the extent that it has.
I suppose it is a reflection on all of us that it has taken 21 years to review something that has been clearly out-of-date for ten years at least. We have had no real manpower policy since 1965 and there could not have been greater economic changes than those we have experienced since then. Throughout that document they spoke of economic growth, the creation of employment, of anything from 60,000 to 70,000 jobs. They spoke of full employment, about the need for the establishment of a manpower agency with offices throughout the country so that employers would be able to find suitable employees quickly. However, the system of advertising and interviewing was too slow for all of those jobs coming on stream as a result of the IDA drive to attract foreign investment here. It is impossible for the manpower agency to operate effectively with 230,000 odd people unemployed, a huge problem of emigration — 70,000 over the last five years — with thousands of young people wanting to participate in training programmes and short-term employment schemes. When one takes all of those factors into account one can readily see why it has become impossible to allow the present system to continue. People now accept there must be a fundamental change.
Like the Minister, I hope the various agencies, with the exception of CERT, will co-operate in following and implementing what was the philosophy of the late Deputy Seán Lemass, what he wanted to do in 1965. One must bear in mind what has happened in the intervening years and not take it that these agencies are being abolished but rather are being reintegrated into our economy to carry out the function for which they were first established but in a different way.
I should like to place on record the first paragraph of the 1965White Paper on Manpower Policy:
Government policy in relation to manpower will aim at the institution of measures which will help workers to benefit from the employment opportunities which will follow from the achievement of the targets set out in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. The Programme forecasts an increase in employment of 78,000 in the decade to 1970 with an increase of 86,000 in industry and 58,000 in services off-set by a decline of 66,000 in agriculture. Workers will also be helped in coping with the inevitable structural changes in employment which will arise as these targets are attained.
The figures about which they spoke then were achieved. The relevant organisations endeavoured to develop that type of policy for some years and succeeded to a great extent. For example, the structural change was from agriculture to, mainly, foreign investment-type industry. The structure is entirely different now, with massive unemployment and the requirement on these agencies to try as effectively and efficiently as possible to co-ordinate State resources in the provision of services, whether by way of training, retraining, employment, cooperatives, working with communities and so on. Clearly they are not doing so at present. There is a board in AnCO, a council in CERT, there is the manpower agency tightly linked with the Department of Labour. Then there is the Youth Employment Agency. I commend the work the people in that agency have endeavoured to do. While I never agreed with the concept of the Youth Employment Agency I accept that the individuals who worked there over the past five years did all they could to change the climate and create jobs. Their brief was too wide, the relevant legislation too broad and their capacity to undertake the relevant task in the economic circumstances prevailing over the past five years was limited. Because of that the Youth Employment Agency have failed. That is no criticism of the excellent staff there who are endeavouring to carry out an impossible task.
I might make a few points on the recent White Paper on Manpower Policy published in September last because the Bill arises therefrom. This is the first opportunity we have had of expressing our views on it in this House. The document more or less lays down what is contained in the other Bills. There are many comments with which I fully agree, not least those contained in paragraph 4.22 under the heading Hotel and Catering Industry where it is said:
Training of management and craft personnel for the hotel and catering industry is the responsibility of the Council for Education, Recruitment and Training (CERT). CERT was established in 1963 and is the oldest of the manpower bodies. Its main activities comprise industry-based training, school-based training and training for the unemployed in training centres.
Paragraph 4.23 says:
The tourism industry of which hotel and catering is a vital component has grown rapidly over the last two decades and makes a significant contribution to economic, social and regional development. The contribution of CERT in this area both in relation to the improvement of standards in the industry and the numbers trained has been significant. In 1985 CERT achieved a 100 per cent placement rate for its trainees within the industry. It is important not only to maintain but to build on the standards which have been achieved.
I will remind the House that the relevant legislation is built on the comments contained in that White Paper. Is it not incredible that, having converted those comments into legislation, effectively the role CERT perform at present is abolished under the same legislation? I shall revert to that matter later.
I will give some more general comments on the White Paper which, in broad outline, I consider to be a good one. Its main thrust is the listing of programmes and schemes, most of which are already being carried out by the various agencies, such as AnCO, Manpower, the Youth Employment Agency and CERT. The objectives of manpower policy, as set out, are too narrow. For example, they do not include any reference to, or are not linked to, industrial or economic policy. There is no reference to employment opportunities whether in the manufacturing or services sector. There are no indicators as to which sectors of industry hold potential for such employment opportunities. There is a major omission in that the White Paper makes no attempt to develop some of the assumptions contained in previous NESC reports, while regional variations in relation to unemployment trends and employment opportunities receive no mention whatever.
The White Paper avoids dealing in proper depth with the complementary roles of education and training. There are no detailed analyses of the existing facilities and working arrangements with the education sector. This is only treated by a proposal that the Minister for Education would produce a report. I think the Minister will agree there was plenty of time to produce a report in the number of years we have waited for a White Paper. The measures outlined on the special labour market are beneficial to unemployed persons. However, these measures are not linked to job opportunities and job creation initiative and are, therefore, limited in terms of sustainable jobs. This has been argued, and I would have thought that the White Paper would provide information on the effectiveness of the performance over the years of the individual manpower agencies. There is no evidence to show that such a study was carried out. I ask the Minister if such a study has been carried out.
It has been stated that one of the advantages of amalgamation will be that the applicants will in future go to one source. There is no mention of costs or efficiencies. These should have been included in the White Paper to prove the effectiveness of the costings and how the whole operation would actually work. There is hardly any mention in the White Paper of finance and funding. Despite the fact that the manpower agencies project their budget three to five years ahead, no attempt has been made to project funding requirements and training numbers for the next three years. That should have been included in the White Paper. In future we should review manpower policy every five years.
The White Paper deals mainly with labour market numbers and training policies which are very limited since they are not linked to employment prospects and job creation opportunities. The White Paper makes little or no mention of jobs even though the legislation is supposed to be employment legislation. The White Paper fails to produce an overall policy linked to economic development but is concentrated more on the institutional arrangements rather than the broad policy. I ask why is it necessary to deal in the White Paper with the amalgamation of the training bodies? The Minister for Labour could at any stage have examined the functions of the manpower agencies and could have arranged to rationalise them if necessary. The weakness in the White Paper is that it deals with the amalgamation of agencies without spelling out more clearly the manpower policy under which it operates. I agree with what the Minister said in his speech but I still think that there should have been an analysis of what the Minister is doing. Otherwise there will be criticism. It is the wish of all of us to improve the situation. The legislation is for the overall good but it could be a little more effective. That is the weakness in the White Paper.
I would like the Minister to clarify what will happen. The legislation spells out that there will be a new authority consisting of 15 people: four representatives of the ICTU; four representatives of employer bodies probably nominated by the FUE; three people representing the interests of social welfare, education and youth; two will be nominated by the Minister and two will be nominated by the trade union representatives at a subsequent date.
Elected by the staff.
I ask the Minister when replying to outline the reasons why that is not done initially and why it comes at a later date. I can imagine why, but it should be on the record of the House. I would like him to say at what stage those two people will be elected. I also ask the Minister, what will happen after that? What is the structure under the authority? From reading the legislation and from the White Paper it appears it will be broken into four or five sections but I would like the Minister to clarify it. I understand from the White Paper that there will be a training division with separate departments in line with what I always called for and what we called for in our policy document in 1985. There will be an employment schemes division, a regional division, a staff and personnel division and an administration and finance division. I ask the Minister to confirm that is correct.
There is very little in the legislation in regard to the regional division. The whole idea of the legislation is to co-ordinate organisations that are unwieldy and are not working together. It is no good organising it at the top if it will not go downstream. The legislation does not explain what will happen under the authority. It states that there will be a regional division. What has happened down the years is that in a certain county a manpower office worked to an extent in conjunction with the social welfare office, with CERT and with the YEA; they all tried to do the one job but were not co-ordinated. The Minister has brought the hierarchies and the bureaucracies together and has centralised them in a way that represents all the individual organisations and I agree with that. The success of the manpower policy depends on how the matter is followed up in the regions.
There is no way that we can support the Bill, although we desperately want to, if there is not built into it some device which will spell out how it will be implemented in the regions. Will it be implemented in the seven IDA regions, in the eight health board areas or in the social welfare offices? I would favour the seven or eight regions with one extremely strong individual in control. It could be argued that it would be fundamental to the success of this legislation that the regional director be more important than the person who will head one of the individual sections in Dublin. It is in the regions that the difficulties are, have been in the past and will be in the future. We should have regard to that and learn from the lessons of the past 21 years, and in particular the past ten years. I ask the Minister not just to spell this out in his reply but to bring forward an amendment that will clarify how the regional structure will work. Otherwise, it will be impossible to support the Bill.
I continually mentioned the LINC and the COMTEC programmes as being the great area of duplication in the present structure. If the regions are not defined a gap will appear. While I totally accept the sincerity of the Minister, if it is not written into the legislation another Minister could change that structure. He could come under local pressure to set up schemes with county development teams, vocational educational committees or other bodies the same as the LINC and the COMTEC programmes.
This party will put down an amendment on Committee Stage asking that CERT be excluded from the Bill. During the years I may have said that CERT should be included or excluded but now we are dealing with legislation and I think that CERT should be left aside but should have a close link with the authority. We will table an amendment to that effect. It will be interesting to hear the Minister's view on that. I know that over the years the Minister, like me, has changed his view.
We passed each other in the night going in different directions.
I am not so sure about that. The Bill has attracted a lot of front bench and back bench interest in all parties and the evidence of that is the long list of Members anxious to contribute. I hope those Members will get an opportunity to contribute although I accept it is important that the Bill be passed by the House fairly soon. When similar legislation was introduced in 1981 the long debate that followed proved worth while. Legislation like this concerns all constituencies. There is a substantial lobby in support of CERT and it is only right that I, as Opposition spokesman, should put forward the views of some of my rural colleagues who have close contact with CERT. That organisation have been deeply involved in tourism down the years. It is vital that CERT should be left as an independent body.
I should like to remind the Minister that his White Paper stated that an organisation with 100 per cent success in deplorable economic times was an organisation that should be left alone. If there is a need to change CERT structurally because the overall authority is being changed that is a different matter but we should not do anything that will damage the way CERT have operated down the years. Many people admire CERT and recognise the substantial gains they have made. The hotel, catering and tourism industries are one of Ireland's top employers at a time when many of our industries are reducing their workforce and there is potential for an increase in employment in them. Their high added value and export earning role makes a significant contribution to the economy. The preliminary figures of CERT's 1986 survey on the scope of tourism indicate that 83,000 people are now in tourism-induced employment, while a further 20,000 are employed in non-tourism catering and the licensed trade. All sectors in the industry are trained by CERT. The industry has a unique geographic spread and provides employment in the less industrialised parts of Ireland. It has a low staff turnover, averaging 8 per cent, and 73 per cent of jobs in hotels and catering; 63,000 employed are full time permanent, a higher proportion than is normally perceived. It remains one of Ireland's few growth industries, in spite of seasonal fluctuations, while manufacturing industry has declined. The industry offers high employment potential and continues to demand and absorb trained staff. The only employment available in many towns is in hotels and the catering sector, particularly during the summer.
CERT were set up in 1963 by Bord Fáilte to provide training for tourism personnel. The need for a specific tourism training agency was recognised by Bord Fáilte only eight years after their foundation. Some four years later AnCO were established specifically to train for manufacturing industry. CERT are training an industry which is uniquely changeable from season to season, due to factors largely outside their control. High flexibility and close liaision with the industry are essential in responding quickly to manpower needs. I am sure the Minister will agree that CERT are the most experienced of the four manpower agencies. Earlier this year the Minister described CERT as an example that all other training agencies should follow and the White Paper has confirmed their position.
Since 1963 more than 60 per cent of the industry's workforce has undergone some form of CERT training. About 25 per cent have been formally trained in hotel and catering colleges. CERT are now clearly identified as the avenue for all careers in the industry. They are also associated with quality training and employment success. They have raised the status of the industry as a career option where previously it had little or no appeal to the school leaver. Demand for places on CERT courses has dramatically increased over the years, from 1,381 applications for normal courses in 1967 to 8,660 applications in 1985. CERT have consistently achieved 100 per cent placement of their formal graduates and 84 per cent of those on courses for the unemployed.
Demand for trainees by the industry is always high and invariably exceeds the supply available in spite of increased numbers in training. Between April and June 1985, 1,711 trainees were requested by tourism industry establishments while a total of 1,062 were available, a 13 per cent increase on 1984 trainee numbers. CERT's 100 per cent placement record is directly related to their integrated approach to training which links recruitment, training and placement. Close staff interaction and mobility ensures careful monitoring of each trainee's progress from the moment they apply for a course to their employment and even beyond. That is to the credit of CERT. Given the volatile nature of the tourism industry, CERT must be flexible in their responses to the industry's varied needs, matching training with manpower needs and gearing services towards areas of greatest need.
Before the House debates Committee Stage the Minister should have another look at how CERT is handled. I do not think it would be difficult to prepare amendments that will keep CERT intact as a limited company because there is an educational element involved in their operations. The Minister has told us that CERT have had a 100 per cent placement rate while the other agencies very from 23 per cent to 32 per cent, the best being 39 per cent.
Some figures are higher than that.
The figures I quoted were given to me in the House recently. I accept that the placement figure may be higher for specialised courses. If the organisation has a 100 per cent success rate in placement, one must ask why is it considered necessary to change it. The Minister can leave CERT as a limited company reporting back to the Authority. He will have control and CERT will remain a separate organisation. The council of CERT will continue to work closely with the tourism industry.
We are all aware of how CERT help the hotel industry directly. There are 100 students in Rosslare and between 50 and 60 in the Torc Hotel in Killarney. Those hotels are kept open in the winter months and it should be possible to expand that service. It is ludicrous to have hotels idle for four or five months when those establishments could be used to train people for the industry. Young people will get a good education there, will be living in a college environment and, at the same time, getting practical experience. I do not know the extent of the discussions the Minister has had with CERT but I hope they succeed.
It is our intention to table amendments on Committee Stage to put CERT in a special position and at present we have our experts examining the legislation to see how that can be done. Perhaps the Minister will reconsider amending the Bill in this respect, because I have reason to believe he had other options.
In its existing role, CERT are a limited company operating under the Minister for Labour, and they have been extremely successful. That organisation have the ability to take on a number of executive functions in regard to determining and implementing programmes and resources, such as the leasing and purchasing of premises, application of national certification in conjunction with the Minister for Education, negotiating and finalising agreements with other bodies, providing financial support for training programmes, funding arrangements with other institutions, operating commercially at national and international level and managing a commercial subsidiary company.
It is the belief of people who examined this, and of Fianna Fáil's back-up team, that executive functions cannot be encompassed within the structure of the industrial training committees who are limited to advising and assisting their parent organisations. The Minister should examine that, because the initial concept when CERT were established as a limited liability company was that they would carry out their wide range of functions with the consent of the Minister. The establishment of limited liability companies by the Government is an acceptable and well proven practice. We have other models in the State sector, including Aer Lingus, Aer Rianta, B & I, the Kilkenny Design organisation, the National Petroleum Corporation, the Irish Sugar Company and others. CERT hold the view that their status within the new Authority will allow them to be flexible. I think that is a fair argument. I accept it, and the hotels federation and some of the trade unions have been putting forward the same argument. Indeed it seems to be a unanimous view.
The success of the work CERT have been doing might be affected if they are drawn into an area that would seem to be fundamentally different. Therefore, I would ask the Minister and the draftsmen to go back and consider the whole purpose behind the establishment of CERT. The argument that CERT should retain their legal status as a limited company and that the articles of association and memorandum of CERT would be amended to allow them to assume their new position within the training Authority, substituting the training Authority for the Minister for Labour and the Public Service, would allow the continuance of the council of CERT, who would report to the board of the National Employment and Training Authority in their efforts to implement policies. CERT would also submit their budgets for approval by the Authority, thus allowing the Minister full control. By doing that CERT would not necessarily need their own research department because they could link in with the Authority. The Minister, through his nominee on the council of CERT, could have full control over the operations of CERT. In that way the Minister would not affect the rather unique position of CERT. I would be anxious to hear the Minister's arguments to the contrary.
I refer to Part I of the Schedule which deals with the position of the Authority chairman. In the initial years there will be difficulties when efforts are made to streamline four very strong organisations, all of which have special positions. They have been in existence for a considerable time and inevitably there will be difficulties in getting them to work together. We all appeal to them to do that in the interests of the unemployed and of people seeking to be included in courses of training and retraining, short term employment schemes, etc. Those in these organisations should think of the young people involved rather than concentrate on their own selfish interests. They have proved in the past that they are capable of that: they have shown that they are capable of co-operating with each other very fully.
It will be important to get this board off to a good start and therefore there will be a need for a full time chairman. Has the Minister given consideration to that? I suggest there is an argument for a full time chairman. Does the Minister think that there will not be the number of meetings in the initial years to warrant a full time chairman? I think that in the interest of getting things going, of getting the five departments set up and of achieving co-operation, a full time chairman should be appointed. Would it be possible to get a person who would have the commitment to do all those things on a part time basis? If it is, it seems likely it would be difficult to get a person of the calibre required to knit organisations like these together, given the rates of pay we allocate to part time chairmen in Ireland. For the small amount of finance it would entail over a short period, I think it would be worth having a full time chairman. I do not think that these organisations could be brought together properly by somebody in a part time capacity. There will be the normal jealousies and bias among these organisations and it is likely that the chairman will have to deal with those things. We should have a chairman who will live with this on a full time basis. I do not think a part time chairman could give the necessary commitment, and if that is not there all the efforts of the Minister will fail. I ask the Minister to reconsider that.
There are some schemes outside the State in which some of our young people are involved. It seems from the Bill that in future these can be done only on a commercial basis. Have these schemes not been successful? Are they too costly? I am not arguing from one point of view or another.
This is about providing consultancy services abroad. The other activities are not affected.
I was thinking of projects like the one in Louvain. I agree with the commercial services. On a number of occasions in the past few years we have discussed here the kind of services the State provides for emigrants, how we should help them abroad. Though some efforts have been made to work with Irish organisations, I am not sure that we are doing enough. Here we have an opportunity to tie this into legislation. Last week I met a number of Irish people who have emigrated to America and though clearly they are doing far better than Irish people in Britain, there are many difficulties and there is a need to give them advice, assistance and co-operation. When one is living semiillegally in another country, and in a certain amount of fear, there is difficulty in contacting one's own consul or embassy and these people just do not do that.
The Americans understand the special position of the Irish immigrants and are not really concerned about their numbers; they are more concerned about other nationalities. But our people are caught up in legislation and regulations that are tight over there and that are going to get tighter in a few months' time, and we cannot ignore them. Regardless of the economic arguments as to why they are away, they are away and they are worried. These people have left our shores and, as in the thirties and fifties, they understandably have a chip on their shoulder about how they have been treated by the old country. The new generation will have the same difficulty in ten or 20 years' time. While the White Paper mentions the problem, nothing has been done about it. I would like the Minister to see if we can have a decent advisory structure to help the people who have left, because they are a sizeable part of our manpower base and it is only when one goes away that one realises just how sizeable.
Section 25 changes the title "youth employment levy" to "training and employment levy". We welcome that because it was wrong, with the changes in employment patterns in the last few years, that people over 25 could not benefit from the money that was raised. Perhaps the Minister would outline exactly how he sees the levy operating now under the new title. There are difficulties. Despite the fact that the levy was originally sold on the basis that it would help to create sustainable jobs in the community and with co-operatives, more and more of the money is being used for training and retraining rather than in employment. Perhaps the Minister would give us his views on this because, as the European Social Fund cut back on the available resources, the levy will continue to be used for short term training courses and will be of no benefit in the area for which it was set up in the first place. That would create ill-will in the trade union movement whose members made this fairly major sacrifice when one takes into consideration the high level of taxation. The Minister should spell out exactly how section 25 is to be implemented in the foreseeable future.
Section 6 provides for the appointment of a director general. Perhaps the Minister would tell us how the various departments will be headed, the grades of people to be employed, whether they will be new people or the heads of the present Departments, what type of job functions they will have, whether they will report back to the Authority and so on. In particular I would like to know what grade of person will be employed as the regional divisional manager. I attach enormous importance to that position because the person occupying it will be out there in the field co-ordinating and keeping in touch with the various bodies, the educational interests and so on, batting away with those organisations and making the thing work. That regional manager should be given a certain amount of money so that he has the capability and the power to devise courses, employment schemes and whatever else is necessary to make a significant impact on employment and on the standards of training in this region. If this position is pitched too low we will be back to centralised bureaucracy before the ink is dry on the Bill. It is vitally important that the person concerned be given the muscle and that the grade is up to the standard of the job he is expected to do, because otherwise we will not attract the right person.
There are a number of sections on staffing. In this legislation we are switching people from the State sector to the semi-State sector. I accept that this may be a delicate issue, but perhaps the Minister will tell us if there are any difficulties, if the safeguards on pay and conditions, tenure and pensions of persons transferred to the Authority from existing manpower bodies, as stated in sections 7 and 8, are agreed and, if not, what stage the negotiations are at.
Section 4 refers to assisting persons seeking employment elsewhere in the European Community. Is this part of the legislation restricted to the European Community? I see how it could be used very usefully outside the EC.
Fianna Fáil welcome this legislation and we want to see it work properly. The legislation should not be vague, leaving out a number of areas. We hope that CERT will be left as a separate organisation with the tie-in to the Authority, since nothing is lost by doing that, and that the other bodies will be successfully amalgamated into one Authority. I do not believe the Minister is conceding very much here since their programme, budget, plans and aspirations will have to go through the Authority and that gives the Minister all the power he would wish to have while maintaining what has been the most successful of our manpower agencies in the past 23 years.
In regard to the regions perhaps the Minister would spell out how they are devised so as not to get back into the situation we have been in in the last number of years.
An argument has been put forward in regard to the composition of the board. Some people argue that perhaps people from the county development organisations could have a role. That can be argued one way or the other.
Regarding the three individuals for social welfare, education and youth interest, will the Minister say whether he envisages that they will be civil servants from those areas or people from a recognised organisation who have an interest in those bodies? I am not too sure about social welfare and education but in the youth interest the argument could be put forward that the latter would be very useful. The National Youth Council of Ireland and other bodies have had a big input into much of the work that has gone on in the training areas, have been constructive over the years and were very helpful to the Minister's party in selling the Youth Employment Agency at the time. We went along with the principle of the YEA on the basis that the National Youth Council of Ireland at the time saw benefit in it and our spokesman on Labour of the day, Deputy Gene Fitzgerald, made clear in his 1981 speech that that was one of the reasons we were giving them a chance. We have never believed that that would succeed. When one reads that debate it is sad to think that five years later, despite so many of the things we were all highlighting and so many of the aspirations that were expressed then, we have gone such a short distance down that road. We achieved nothing in that period. We trained and retrained a great number of people, I suppose, but with no great success.
The 1965 White Paper and this White Paper deal with the tie-in between the educational institutes and this Authority who are taking up individuals for a period from the time they leave either second level education or third level education and go on into employment. Regarding the phrase "on into employment" there is a great argument for much closer links with the IDA and this new organisation. There were difficulties about that in the past because it was all training and retraining and it was difficult for the IDA to admit that this body were doing a fine job. That was how it started out in 1967 with AnCO who were working closely with the then Department of Industry and Commerce. The question was who the outside investors were who might come into the Irish economy in the next ten years and what type of areas they were getting into. From that and the close links with the educational institutes we are lucky that we have invested our money well in the NIHE and in the faculties of engineering in our colleges. Now we are recognised worldwide as producing some of the best engineers particularly in the high technology areas of biochemistry, chemistry, electronics and general engineering. There is no doubt about it that our people coming out of third level are of a very high quality. The IDA working closely with this organisation can maintain that position. Last week I got great satisfaction on hearing the praise of our engineers from the major companies in Silicon Valley. The only difficulty is that 800 or 900 of them are over there and not here devising schemes, but I suppose the success is that of our educational system.
We argue that the IDA should be reviewed in many ways. How does the Minister feel that this manpower Authority could co-operate and link in more closely with the IDA? I understand that those early links that were successful and should have been built on were broken up and dissipated because of the conglomeration of organisations we had in the manpower field, and that the IDA links now are more tenuous than real.
We had some questions here the other day on apprenticeship training. I agree with the White Paper's statement on page 30 in this regard, and I quote:
The present statutory apprenticeship system is costly, inflexible and inefficient. The Government have instructed AnCO, in consultation with relevant interests, to revise and modernise the system. AnCO's objective will be to develop an apprenticeship system which
— is based on standards achieved rather than time served;
— ensures a satisfactory balance between supply of and demand for apprentices;
— reduces the financial cost to the State of maintaining quality.
You do not have to read too much between the lines about "costly, inflexible and inefficient". I agree with that totally. In the 17th century Dublin was one of the best cities in the world for the employment of goldsmiths, silversmiths and all the people connected with the Guildhall and the Tailors' Hall. We built up a tremendous model of trade for Europe. All that is recorded and documented and the results of the workmanship are still here and in other countries. In the 18th century we lost that. In the 19th century we built it up again and now in the 20th century we seem to have lost it again.
Young people are more than willing to work almost for nothing if somebody would train them. People became highly skilled through learning from their fathers and elder brothers the various crafts but there is no mechanism for them to obtain employment. The trades seem to be totally closed except for a tiny, limited number. It is sad and at the same time absurd that so few people can get into any trade. The day will come when we will lose further trade and expertise. I do not know what AnCO's answer is. I have heard answers but I do not accept the ones I have heard. There must be a major policy change in this area because we have poured millions of pounds into training but killed the apprenticeships with very few exceptions.
People have been taken for one year on job training. More than a few people are going around the country with certificates of one year on job training. Probably they would build all the buildings we will need in the next ten years if they could finish out their training. That system is no good. If I read the White Paper correctly, the standard achieved, rather than the time served is the key line. The people who drafted the White Paper are wise, they have hit the nail right on the head there. It is urgent that we bring forward a scheme where apprenticeships in all the traditional trades can be properly trained by the new manpower Authority and then allowed on to the job market. If we train them for a year in the State training agencies and then throw them out on to the job market they will not be taken on there because they have not got the crafts needed. Many people who are highly experienced and want to leave the country can say they have the craft and experience but they have not completed the requisite number of years. They are blocked in every way. One of the first tasks of the new Authority should be to correct that area which has been very badly handled up to now.
Despite our great success in education, our almost free educational system and the fact that economics have changed to the degree that people want to be educated, a high number of people drop out at second level and in parts of my constituency some drop out at first level. The White Paper on page 30 states:
Young people who leave the education system without the ability to compete for jobs need a basic skills foundation course. AnCO, through its Skills Foundation Programme, is providing such a course as part of its main contribution to the Social Guarantee for Youth. Young people with low educational levels and without skills are also assisted by the network of Community and Travellers Training Workshops and Social Training Workshops for Offenders, operating in conjunction with the Probation and Welfare Service, which provide access to training and work experience in particularly disadvantaged young people. The future of Community and Travellers Training Workshops will be considered in the light of developments within the educational system.
That is a mouthful.
Written to be read rather than spoken.
We have a skills foundation, AnCO, social guarantee, community and travellers' training workshops, social training workshops, probation officers and welfare officers. I represent areas like Sheriff Street and others that I will not mention but that name crops up often. The present system that AnCO tried to operate takes out a small handful of people over a fairly long period and has a limited success rate. It does not work. That is the bottom line. I do not blame the people in AnCO. The system is costly and it does not work. This section of the Bill should be deleted. We should look at the people who leave first and second level education and give them some proper training. If people already involved in the training services work together they can provide basic courses in an orderly way.
We should recognise that many people in disadvantaged areas are very skilled. They have developed skills and crafts because of their great tradition on the docks and in shipping. It is not appropriate to bring such people for training to a room in a fancy building with word processors. The courses must be relevant to the people and available in their own areas. To take people from Sheriff Street to Loughlinstown is like taking them on holidays and in those circumstances they cannot be expected to apply themselves. I have a lot of experience with those people and it is obvious that the present system is not working. This section gives the impression that something is being done but it is not really being done. We must find a way of training disadvantaged young people who have opted out of first and second level education.
We could change the educational system for those areas.
I would agree but there are difficulties in doing that. A colleague of mine was almost fired from school in the Minister's area because he rewrote the educational books of the Department. For the first time in ten years he got the departmental inspectors to visit the school.
There is a lot of argument for the case that the educational system should be changed in those areas. It is unfortunate that it is impossible to keep people in a school or on training courses if they do not wish to be there. However, this is a great opportunity face up to this. We cry out against the crime and vandalism of 15-year olds in this city and in other towns but we do little except spend money on policing, on jails and on detention centres. We are reluctant to change the formal education system in order to give these people a chance which they are not getting at present. The parish priest in the area said to me that if he stood outside Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Seán MacDermott Street and watched all the five-year olds and six-year olds coming out he could tell who would succeed and who would end up in crime because of the lack of opportunities. There is no point in getting angry about them in ten years' time if we do nothing for them in the intervening period. These people deserve and have a right to expect the resources of a training agency to be used for them. Other people whose families have worked hard and have achieved a certain level of education are to be congratulated but they are looking after themselves with some State assistance.
It is no good for a training authority to give success figures in relation to job placements if they do not give a basic education to people who had not got that opportunity previously. I would not care if the placement figures were nil if they had given basic education to such people. Because we have not learned that lesson, we have crime and deliquency in certain areas. Now that we are about to co-ordinate our agencies, somebody should be given the task of helping people in those areas, working with the educational authorities and other relevant people.
There are a number of points I will tease out on Committee Stage but I ask the Minister in replying to Second Stage to consider the major points I have made so that on Committee Stage we will have a clearer understanding of what is envisaged. If we can get the view of the Minister and the Department on the points I have raised and an explanation as to the thinking behind the White Paper, it will allow an easier Committee Stage. I ask for the Minister's co-operation so that we can unite in getting Committee Stage through before the end of this session.
I welcome this Bill and the White Paper on manpower and I compliment both the Minister and his Department on the work put into this. I also compliment Deputy Bertie Ahern on his very constructive and reasoned contribution this morning. This legislation is overdue. The first two objectives of any White Paper in this area is to get better value for taxpayers' money and to give a better service to the public. Our first aspiration as regards NETA would be that it will not be a new mega quango. As it does not have the role of being an additional layer of bureaucracy but an amalgamation of existing agencies it will not be a mega quango but every future administration must ensure that that does not happen.
We need a new departure to deal with unemployment. We have a minimum of 15,000 extra school leavers per annum looking for jobs. In the Committee on Small Businesses we are doing a report on technology and it is striking that by 1990 progressively year by year in the US it is expected that manufacturing employment will come down to 6 per cent of the workforce. Given that 33 per cent of the workforce across Europe is involved in manufacturing it shows the changes that are taking place through computerisation and different technologies that will change the face of traditional employment. Not only do we have to modify our structures dealing with labour market policies but we must improve them because the pace of change is so great.
The Bill outlines the functions of NETA which is basically related to retraining, administration of all the employment schemes, work experience programmes, placement services assisting co-operatives and small enterprises and the operation of the EC free movement of worker provisions.
I would like a commitment from the Minister that by 1987 we will see job centres in each county or in each administrative area. I fully support Deputy Ahern's points in relation to regionalisation. At the end of the day we must have a centre staffed by a number equivalent to the number of placement officers currently in the NMS. In Wexford with a population of 100,000 people we have two placement officers in the NMS, one for the southern part and one for the northern part of the county. I would like to see two job centres for County Wexford where somebody could walk in and put down on a central computerised register all the relevant details, the PRSI number, the PAYE number and all other State references. They could give the job interests and aptitudes in relation to construction work, farming, hotel work and so on. One should be able to see on a VDU the available opportunities at that time. Employers should use that job centre to recruit because the level of recruitment taking place at present without any reference to the National Manpower Service is most disappointing. The NMS are starved of resources although, theoretically, they are the window of all this panoply of services, AnCO, CERT and other agencies. That shop window should be an integrated reference point with immediacy of contact similar to that operated in the UK where there is a daily interaction between employers and potential employees. If there is no employment for the applicant, he or she should be offered work experience or training. I realise that many large cogs must turn before small cogs move but that must be the unambiguous commitment of the House.
We have had the 1967 Industrial Training Act and the setting up of CERT in 1963 but it is a cause for major concern that when such legislation is passed there is no subsequent accountability to the House. Perhaps there is accountability to the Minister but there should at least be an annual or bi-annual report to the House.
Neither of the speakers who contributed to the debate mentioned efficiency in relation to the existing agencies.
It is out of season.
I spent the last five years doing so.
The facts are disturbing because my investigation reveals that within a half square mile of Baggot Street Bridge, 800 people are involved in the deployment of one type of manpower service or another. Each of those people takes up approximately 300 square feet in an office which costs about £10 per square foot. That means that approximately £2 million is tied up in expenditure of that sort. I understand that 600 people are employed in the headquarters of AnCO in Baggot Street and that they have another office just round the corner. This is very disturbing at a time when State resources are very scarce and when there are difficulties maintaining basic payments for the least well off in the community. These offices are lavishly carpeted and a fortune is spent on daily and other newspapers. AnCO spent a five figure sum in this regard. Indeed in this House, Members are supplied with free newspapers. In these agencies there is an enormous amount of duplication, inefficiency, ineffectiveness and hidden waste under reams of glossy presentation of accounts from European Social Fund figures justifying various items. I hope that one of the roles of the new body will be to rationalise south side offices which are of no relevance to the people they are supposed to serve.
I also wish to underline the importance of regionalisation which was referred to by Deputy Ahern. Not only should there be immediacy of contact in the job centres but we should have a solitary person responsible for every State employment related service in a given area. The unit of administration should be on a county basis with a different administration for the larger areas such as Dublin, Cork and Limerick. It has been proved that the most efficient unit of administration is the local authority structure of the county councils. The manager in charge of County Wexford — or any other county — should know exactly the number of people who are employed under the various training schemes. He should be able to put his finger on all the services provided so that there is an integrated product for sale. At present one agency do not know what the other are doing and there is aggressive competition in terms of the services provided. For example, the YEA move in one direction in relation to community enterprise and the AnCO community youth training project scheme moves in another. It is very important that the Minister be able to pick up the telephone to find out what is happening in any county at a particular time. That is the best way to get an evaluation for future reference in relation to developing and improving schemes.
Deputy Ahern also mentioned the future of CERT in the new Authority. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Small Businesses produced a report on tourism, catering and leisure. No one is more enthusiastic than I in relation to the development of the tourist sector. It has great potential, not only in terms of international growth, but in relation to obtaining a greater market share of that growth. It is the only sector which can have an employment intensity that technology will not replace and the only service industry that is wealth creating in terms of exports. Notwithstanding that, some of the complaints made about the future of CERT under this legislation are not realistic. I should like to quote from a statement issued by the council of CERT following a September meeting attended by the Minister, Deputy Quinn, which puts into context what the Bill is trying to achieve. It is contained in Focus, a bi-monthly news letter on youth manpower issues published by the Youth Employment Agency. It states:
In relation to the proposed amalgamation of the four manpower agencies, CERT is now satisfied that it will retain its identity within the proposed National Manpower Authority. It is also satisfied that its training programmes and services for the tourism industry will remain unchanged and that the employment and conditions of CERT staff will not be affected.
It is understood that the Council of CERT will be reconstituted within the new Authority, to whom it will report. The Council is now addressing the issues relating to the repositioning of CERT within the new Authority.
CERT will continue to provide the services specific to the hotel, catering and tourism industry along the lines of its Three Year Corporate Plan published last August, many features of which are contained in the Government White Paper.
The genuine desire that CERT would continue the excellent work they are doing and would in no way be hindered or undermined by this agency was laid out in stark and real terms. I would be the first to object in this House if the role of CERT was being changed. I have the highest regard for Mr. Leahy, the managing director, and the management of CERT. They are a small and efficient organisation. I would be the very first to object if the baby was being thrown out with the bath water in terms of this reorganisation and amalgamation. They have a record second to none in terms of placement and the quality of their training which is up to export standard. As a result, people can go abroad and gain top positions in the catering industry.
The real issue, and I have to be blunt about this, is that the hotel industry are only paying £44,000 for a service which is costing £6 million to provide. While I have every regard for the ability of any lobby group to get their way and I have particular regard for the employment-intensive nature of the hotel industry and the seasonal jobs they provide, surely some agreement can be reached on the funding which would preserve the position of the hotel industry and the services which are required without undermining the proposed changes in the structure? The council of CERT have been charged with the responsibility of procuring those services in the past and if they are satisfied, quite frankly, I am satisfied.
I would now like to turn to the levy which is very important. The YEA levy is being turned into a manpower levy and bears no relation to age. One of the things which struck me as absolutely crazy when the Joint Committee on Small Businesses carried out a report on the development of small business co-ops was that under the existing YEA structure if two or three people, be they redundant or whatever, got together and wished to set up a cooperative that depended on whether they were over or under 25. It had nothing to do with whether they could be successful or not. It was inexplicable and could not be justified. That microcosm gives a clear example of the need for change. Right across every constituency any father of three who is unemployed for six years is just as deserving as any 19 year old who is one or two years unemployed. I do not think that by changing this the needs of the long term unemployed who are over 25 and the youth need are mutually exclusive. It is time to integrate the services. I support that change. Later I will come to specific youth services about which I am worried under these changes.
The first priority of NETA should be to aid the long term unemployed. There is no doubt that there is a direct relationship between the employability of people and the length of period they are unemployed. The longer they are unemployed the more disillusioned and bitter they become and the more they move away from the work ethic. They move into a particular way of life which moves from the pub to the betting office to a family situation. I fully understand their frustrations. I am very impressed by the people in my own constituency, whom I never thought I would see working in a fit, working today on the social employment scheme and working very successfully. I have no doubt that their employability regardless of the duration they are on the social employment scheme has changed dramatically and their attitude to work has changed dramatically. That must be a priority.
One thing about which I am very critical is that the existing agencies have got into the numbers game in the areas of training etc. They have tried to recruit — not in all schemes because some schemes are specifically for the disadvantaged and it would be unfair to generalise — the people who are most likely to be recruited any way. That raises their placement rate. Therefore, the Minister can come into this House and say that 40,000 to 50,000 people have been put through training. That suits AnCO and everybody else. That says nothing for the quality of the service. We would be doing a much better service if we targeted through the direct action programme in the White Paper the special needs of the long term unemployed even if the success rate is not 100 per cent.
A hard look needs to be taken at the external training division of AnCO. Criticism which I have made in relation to the lack of liaison between the NMS and other bodies particularly applies to the external training division. Some people have provided an excellent service on a contract basis for trainee programmes but that is a typical area where one administrator in a county area could deal with the situation so that there would be proper correlation. There has been a waste of money in the external training division. They have tried to make, through the Start Your Own Business Programme, entrepreneurs out of people who have limited potential or interest in enterpreneurship and who certainly do not have the resources. It would be far better to deal with other management programmes, which I will come to later, rather than use the wrong methods to meet the different needs of different people.
I would like to see within NETA a strong R and D division. I do not know if that is provided for in the Bill and perhaps the Minister would respond. In every walk of life research and development is critical because of the pace of change in society. Whether that R and D division is responsible for disseminating information on international changes which are taking place in labour market policies or for training or retraining people for sectoral industrial changes which are going to take place, it is critical that there be a strong R and D division either in the Policy Unit of the Department of Labour or at a senior level in NETA.
One aspect of NETA about which I am particularly pleased and which Deputy Ahern raised is the full time and part time nature of the executive chairmen. I would like to say, and this is strictly non-political, that in my work on the Joint Committee on Small Businesses I came across John Lynch, the boss of the IPC. In terms of the information, advice and research he gave I found him to be of the highest calibre. I do not think that one could have a more faithful and more enterprising public servant than Mr. Lynch to run this agency. Because of his experience in IPC where the unions and the employers run the company he will be able to work his way through. It is an excellent choice. I hope however that once the permanent managerial structure is put in place it will not be top heavy. An obvious difficulty is that one has very well paid and very important jobs existing in the four State agencies. Deputy Fitzgerald will be well aware that there is such a thing as semi-State politics with a small p in terms of career politics etc. Everybody knows this.
More dangerous than our sort of thing?
It certainly can be. I can see a difficulty there. It will require all the skills of the new executive chairmen and of the Minister to get agreement because there are wheels within wheels. I hope common sense will prevail, that at the end of the day we will not all have to compromise and that there will not be a top heavy management structure. We can get into an endless level of consultation and this area can be filled with gobbledegook rhetoric, all kinds of concepts and so on. At the end of the day it is all nonsense because what we need is one job centre where somebody can go and get a job. If there is hiring and firing to be done, I hope the boot will be put in, because this needs to be done in the national interest, although I admit it is not in the nature of the Department of Labour to think in such terms.
I want to say a few words about the White Paper on manpower policy. There are some points I favour but there are certain areas to which greater attention should be given and changes made in the future. We are dealing here with a wider concept of employment. A striking point about this White Paper is its similarity to the industrial White Paper with the five year reviews, centralising of the pivotal policy role of the Department and so on. These steps are welcome, as is the greater co-operation between State agencies. Each Department should liaise in the area of the development of policies over a five year period so that they can develop together.
The White Paper deals with a number of critical issues. I welcome the direct action programme, the target of which are the long term unemployed. If these people are not to be disillusioned, they must be offered an alternative opportunity when they go to the job centre. If they are told by the officials at the job centre that even though they have gone through all the training schemes and programmes there is still no work available, that is a recipe for disaster and will embitter those people. The direct action programme must be well thought out before it is put in place because if it is not properly presented it could be counter-productive.
The transition period from school to work is identified in the White Paper. This is of critical importance because one of the first questions school leavers are asked when they apply for a job is what experience they have. Their only experience may be work in a shop or in another unskilled area. To get a job these young people find they must have a job. It is a vicious circle which of their own volition they cannot overcome. I do not know how effective the VEC schemes have been but I wish them well.
It is too early to say.
I believe the work experience programme is the best basis on which to proceed. It is very important to bring the maximum flexibility into this programme and that the NMS are more aggressive when they are dealing with employers. I am in favour of cutting out the abuses of "rolling-over" Work Experience Programme people once their six months are up because this is very disillusioning for the young people involved. A better service must be provided because the work experience programme had one of the higest placement rates — around 70 per cent. As long as the placement figures are so high, this programme has a great chance of success and that scheme should be developed. One drawback is that the level of payment, £34 a week, is rather low. Many people would get more on unemployment assistance if they were not means tested. I would like to see that figure increased to £40 or £45 because young people often have to pay travelling expenses. I would like to see this scheme made more effective because I believe the principle is excellent. We often have change for the sake of change but minor changes in this area would be helpful.
In future all recruitment to any training courses should be done through the NMS, the front line of NETA. At the moment CERT and AnCO are involved in direct recruitment, and that should change. I am not happy with the way the Central Statistics Office recruit. Theoretically the CSO work through the National Manpower Service. When an applicant applies to the CSO he is told recruitment is through the National Manpower Service, but when he contacts the National Manpower Service he is told that the service is used only as a postbox for the CSO. This is very disillusioning because many applicants are never called for interview. This adds to the impression that this agency is a joke and that is damaging what we are trying to do in this area. It is important that people are called for the maximum number of interviews and that there is a proper follow-up for the people who apply for jobs.
I also welcome the point raised in the White Paper dealing with equal opportunities. This will mean that there is a greater range of services for women. In some areas, such as the hairdressing training programme, there is positive discrimination in favour of women. Secretarial work is done mostly by women, and I do not say that in a sexist way, and it is important to develop services for women. Something which does not seem very viable at first sight is the provision of creche facilities, play schools and preschools. It is in this area that I see growth in labour terms. If my wife and I had a family and were working and wanted to hire somebody to look after our children I would get no tax relief. I raised this matter with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance——
I hope that is not keeping the Deputy back.
No, but the election might. We will not get into that. This area is a haven for the black economy. It is an area we should legitimise and develop because there are many families who need creche facilities but most of those projects fail because the numbers are not maintained. Almost every mother could do with pre-school facilities for her children, whether for one day or five days a week. We need a positive action programme to develop that facility.
I will turn now to areas which should be given greater attention. The first is job sharing. Regardless of who are in Government, there is every likelihood, given our demographic structure, our historical rates of employment creation and the likely changes that will take place in terms of automation and of fewer people being employed, that we will need to look at ways of distributing the existing workload among a greater number of people. There are two ways of doing this, through work sharing or job sharing. In my view work sharing does not work because it is uncompetitive, it adds to the costs of production. But job sharing, where one splits the cost of the job, the hours of the job, and everything is split down the middle does work. Slowly but surely in the health services we are seeing a growth in job sharing. But we must realise that, in the wider context, many people would be happy with half a job rather than none.
There is much lip service paid to the increasing amount of leisure time we shall all have. One way of directly stimulating that is through job sharing. I believe that the White Paper on Manpower Policy should have addressed — in central Government-thinking terms — how we might review our social welfare system, taxation code and employment legislation, such as the Unfair Dismissals Act, the Redundancy Act, maternity protection and other things, in a way which would develop a vibrant job sharing sector throughout all sectors of employment. Aer Rianta have tried it in a small way and some other semi-State bodies also. We have seen the evolution of career breaks and so on in the public service. It is very important that there be some incentive created whereby people would have a higher net rate of pay out of their gross earnings on half a job then they would on a full job. That needs to be developed or, perhaps, some system whereby they would have the same PRSI entitlements on a job sharing arrangement as they would on a full job. Of course this costs money but it must be remembered that we are already spending huge amounts on social welfare.
Another area on which Deputy Ahern touched was that of emigration. I shall say something now which perhaps I should not and will not be popular. Let us suppose one was a man from Mars looking at Ireland, seeing its demographic structure, envisaging in what way one could increase the level of employment for young Irish people who are bright, well educated, very employable, and who become frustrated because they do not get a job immediately, then have to take a job lower than their expectations, lose that job, go on a training scheme, get married and give up: it is a very despairing cycle. We must be honest with our people. We must acknowledge that the growth of our labour force is such that we have not been able to create the jobs. In saying that we are not throwing in the towel. But we must realise, within an EC consumer market of 320 million people — although there are 30 million unemployed — there are great employment opportunities there partly because, in some instances, Irish people are better educated and partly because they have a genuine sound work ethic, they generally want to work. That has been proved by generations of Irish people. We must say to them that, in modern terms, Brussels is as near to Dublin as is Tralee in travel time, that opportunities are changing and our horizons must change. The required birth rate on the Continent is 2.2 children, per married couple, to retain the employment and population levels. At present the birth rate is 1.5. That means that, leaving aside the job shedding that will happen anyway, there will be a huge employment opportunity within the EC.
Of course, the first thing one is accused of when one says that is that one is exporting the problem, that one is returning to the dark days of the thirties and all the rest of it. We must be a little more mature and realistic about this matter. We must set out in realistic terms that there are opportunities for young people, that even if they go abroad for a short time only, they vastly improve their expertise which they can use when they come back to set up their own enterprise and add to the general national management expertise. We must realise that they are doing this country a service. Instead of turning our backs on them — I am not contending that anybody in this House says they do not exist — or using them as a political football, we should have a positive policy not only of endeavouring to assist emigrants but of trying to liaise between NETA and corresponding employment agencies abroad, tailoring their efforts to our third level educational facilities.
One of the things that appals me is the situation of people who come into my clinics having got their diploma or certificate from the regional technical college, or their BA or other degree out of university. Take the example of an electronics diploma course or bio-chemistry, some such course, undertaken in a regional technical college. They will say that they have tried this or that co-operative for a laboratory technician job. They have tried this and that place; they have tried Braun in Carlow and all the big firms. Firms put their name on file but they have no vacancy. The first question I ask them is: how are your school colleagues getting on? They will say that some went abroad, some did not get jobs but, at the end of the day they will say that the college did nothing whatsoever in terms of placement. That is a basic weakness in our educational system. There are career pamphlets, there is this that and the other but there is no direct effort made to help people find jobs. And these people would take jobs anywhere.
BEs excepted.
Yes, I would agree with that. I am referring particularly to the regional technical colleges. It is as if a job does not matter, that once one has received one's certificate the game is over, they are no longer responsible, which is crazy. NETA and this legislation are endeavouring to pick up the totally neglected problems of the Departments of Social Welfare and Education. When we talk about rationalisation and revised structures there must be a greater awareness within those two Departments of their responsibility. These organisations are endeavouring to pick up the tabs, the broken pieces of the employment opportunities of young people. We want to get our act together in terms of the new information technology available, to disseminate to third level students and others details of employment opportunites arising abroad and gear our courses in education toward those future job opportunities.
Another area with which the White Paper on Manpower Policy might have dealt and did not, and which is of critical importance, is that of part time work. We have a farcical situation at present. For example, if I am on unemployment assistance, which is means tested, and my neighbour, farmer, hotelier, builder or whoever offers me a job for three days only in a week, I am given two choices. First I can take the job, and the prospective employer may say: "I will not be stamping your card but you can sign off for the week." Say I worked for 30 hours and I sign off for the week, what happens then? I sign on the next week. A social welfare officer comes out and asks how much I earned. Those earnings are treated as means for the following year. It is crazy. I have to wait six weeks before it is processed while I am on supplementary welfare allowance, being made feel like a beggar by the community welfare officer. Any such person would be mad to sign off. In such circumstances a person will say: "I will take cash and I will sign on. I will do both and break the law." We must realise that an element of the fraud in social welfare is occasioned by the bureaucratic and systematic rigidities of the system. The Department of Social Welfare do not see it as their job to look into this matter. The White Paper on Manpower Policy did not deal with it.
I would ask the Minister for Labour to give a lot of thought to a part time or casual work scheme. I know that a pilot scheme has been introduced in Cork by the Minister for Social Welfare called the part time allowance scheme. That represents the basis of resolving this problem. We could pay a single person £25 a week or a married person £40 to £50 a week for 24 hours' work. That should be done nationally in the job centres by 1 January 1987. We could then clamp down on the people who are working and signing on because there is no justifiable reason why they should be doing so. That way we could really get to grips with fraud. At present there are some legitimate reasons for marginal fraud. All of this is taking place in the black economy. We could legitimise the whole "nixer" system. I hope that the White Paper on manpower and the policy reviews that are taking place will deal with this.
I am glad that exports are included. I have spoken to people who travelled to Ireland and I have looked at studies comparing the training systems here and in the UK and there is no doubt that many of the Irish training schemes are greatly superior to any in Europe. Credit should be given to a number of the instructors. There is potential for rationalisation in regard to AnCO. I would give the maximum flexibility in this legislation to try to utilise any spare capacity that might arise in any of the State agencies to sell products abroad and earn money for the country.
The social employment scheme is referred to in the White Paper. It will come under the auspices of NETA. It is an excellent scheme and I have already mentioned some of its benefits. However, two things need to be looked at. The supervision varies a lot from scheme to scheme. In some cases this is getting the scheme a bad name. More stringent provision is needed as regards supervision or greater resources need to be provided to pay for proper supervision. That applies equally to local authority and voluntary work. Secondly, County Wexford was picked out as a pilot county for the social employment scheme. Wexford County Council ran with that ball with a great verve and enthusiasm. As public representatives, we made a great song and dance about it but the money ran out this year.
They ran too fast.
One target was 560 people but only 340 were taken on. This stop-go system does not help.
The Deputy should convince the farmers of Wexford to pay their taxes and then he will have all the money he wants.
There could be savings with AnCO and so on.
The farmers in Wexford owe £3 million in rates.
We will not go into that now. It is very disillusioning when people put down their names for a scheme and are then told that it has been shelved. It would be better to say on day one that there is only enough money to cover so much and everything will be settled from the beginning. The stop-go system does not work.
There has been no change in the rates for the enterprise allowance scheme since it was first introduced in February 1984. It should be related to social welfare increases at a minimum. People are being moved from unemployment to self-employment and they are taking risks. They deserve a little support. I do not know why a person must be on the live register for 13 weeks to be eligible for the enterprise allowance scheme. It is very hard to explain this to people. Workers, such as those in Albatros Fertilisers Limited in New Ross or in National Aluminium Limited in Wexford, where there have been closures, get their P45 form when they are made redundant and they then want to set up business on their own. They do not want to be a burden on the State or to draw the dole. Neither do they want to wait 13 weeks to set up their business. I do not understand why that condition should be included because it is an extra cost to the Exchequer. Many people set up businesses every year and they cannot all join the EAS but people who are genuinely made redundant and produce a P45 form should be able to take part in the scheme. I welcome the expansion of the EAS into all sectors during the period of this Government.
The successful nature of the PRSI exemption scheme was not mentioned in the White Paper. There were 2,000 people taken on under this scheme. The anomalous nature of aspects of the employers' PRSI system has been referred to many times: in other words, the more people one employs the more PRSI the employer will pay. It is a tax on jobs. I know that PRSI should be paid and the Commission on Taxation recommended that PRSI should be paid. It was studied by the ESRI and the NESC but nothing happened at the end of the day. I know that the Government are not making any money from PRSI. They are losing money on it. Its effects should be looked at in terms of unemployment. I would like to see that exemption continued in 1987 for a limited period to stimulate employment creation.
We should develop a job card scheme in this country. I understand that the dockers in Cork operate under a job card system.
That is not to say it is ideal.
The Minister mentioned the social employment scheme and the amount of money that is being spent. If what I hear about the amount of fraud that is going on in terms of people working and signing for the dole is only half right then there is money there. With the job card scheme an inspector goes around to check that people have the card. If it is in the employment exchange they will be in trouble.
That would close down a lot of building sites.
We have already tried to ensure that only registered contractors get grants and our record in that area is good. The more building sites of that nature that are closed down the better because that work should be done legitimately. I hope the Department of Labour can introduce a job card system which would tie in with the different employment agencies. It would have a central number which would cover tax, social insurance and the self-employment record. With computer technology it is possible to do that at a low cost.
I will not go into my criticisms of the Department of Social Welfare except to say that they see things in a very narrow context. I wish to deal with an area which is of concern to me and that is the small business needs. It is very important. I spent the best part of the last three and a half years as chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Small Businesses looking at the problems of small firms and their needs. In this context it is relevant in terms of their managerial needs. The IMI and so on come under the auspices of the Department of Labour and this is referred to in the White Paper.
Anyone who takes the time to study business performance and the output of any sector of industry will come to the universal conclusion that the success or failure of a business depends on good management and nothing else. Whether in the plastics industry, pharmaceuticals or the construrction industry, in times of high interest rates, high inflation and bad industrial relations, there are people who will will do well and there are people who will do badly. The characteristic of a small firm is the management structure whereby the same person is the owner, managing director, production manager and salesman. His limitations are great. He knows how to produce an article but he does not know how to sell it or how to deliver it on time. That is our biggest weakness. We must build up an indigenous manufacturing sector. The lesson of the black hole was that foreign industry could legitimately repatriate profits abroad. Indigenous industries are worth a lot more to us because they can only repatriate the money up the road. They are worth a lot more to the Exchequer and the country.
One of the obvious limitations of one person concerns is that they do not export. Up to 80 per cent of small manufacturing firms do not export and I include Northern Ireland as an area for exports. That is a damning indictment of our small firm sector. Marketing is a management function and it strikes me as peculiar that when we were studying those areas and going into developmental policies the management area did not have anything to do with the people who were charged with the responsibility of developmental policies. Management did not have anything to do with the IDA, was not the responsibility of CTT or the Department of Industry and Commerce. It is that critical factor that will give a return on the State's investment in terms of free grants from the IDA that struck me as crazy. I realise the structural problems but this does not make sense.
We recommended that for small companies a specific managerial developmental programme should be streamlined under the auspices of the IMI, AnCO and the IPC. We were thinking in terms of a mini version of the IDA company development plan. We envisaged a handful of people working in that unit to evaluate the problems in different companies, whether they were trading profitably or not. That unit would set targets for the company and authorise assistance in hiring a marketing expert or a person to assist wherever the inadequacy was in management. We suggested that there should be a follow-up evaluation and we were thinking in terms of the unit choosing 200 small companies annually and working through the 5,000 small manufacturing firms we have. I accept that at the outset such a unit would make mistakes but they would learn from them. We were disappointed that this was not addressed in the White Paper particularly when one considers the amount of work the committee put into this research. We met the Minister for Industry and Commerce and put those points to him but he told us that they were a matter for the Department of Labour.
If Irish small firms are to be left to a national advisory committee that does not have proper teeth and funding — I am not saying that such an organisation would be improper — we should not be surprised if the level of liquidations and closures does not change and we should not be surprised if the appalling export record of small firms does not change. Only policy measures can be blamed if that happens. It is recognised that in manufacturing there is a management need. I should like to compliment AnCO on the changes they have made to meet the needs in the retail and distribution sector. Many small retail outlets are family concerns and when they reach the third generation the chip-off-the-old-block is not as concentrated as it was and the entrepreneurship is not there. It is important that changes are made through night courses at the VEC's or adjuncts of the RTC system. Those who own small businesses do not have the time to go to Dublin to attend courses. Many of them would not understand what was going on. They need practical managerial training and assistance in areas like shop display, proper accounting systems, stock control, planning and organisation, the very rudiments of management. I would like to see panels of retired executives and graduates being established in the Department to provide a back-up service. Many people would give help for a small amount of money. There are many retired bankers and executives who could give help to small business in their localities. I hope the management programme will be able to establish such panels at regional level.
I would like to see all training in the construction sector put together rapidly. When we were preparing a report on the construction industry some disquieting information came to my attention about the number of apprentices and the number of placings for them. If one was uncharitable enough one could allege many things such as bad planning in terms of supply and demand. If the margin of error is what I heard something will have to be done about this shortly. I hope this does not happen again. In the construction area there is a greater need for efficiency in terms of integrating design and construction and on-site efficiency. That has not been dealt with. I hope the national advisory committee will tackle that.
I should now like to deal with the question of apprentices. The Minister will be aware of the response of the CII's manpower policy committee to his White Paper. There is a need for an urgent review of the apprenticeship scheme as suggested in the White Paper. We should learn from the experience of our competitors in Europe such as West Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In West Germany 65 per cent of school leavers at the minimum age go directly into apprenticeship under indenture. The figure in Switzerland is 75 per cent. Those young people attend week or day release courses at educational institutions and training centres. In Ireland only 6 per cent of school leavers go into the same apprenticeship structure. There are major advantages in revising our training programme by basing it on in-house training. The apprentice has a better prospect of a long term viable job and the pretence or simulation is taken out of the training centre environment. The apprentice is given a real experience of what it is like to get on with other workers and to go through the different routines of the workers. Such a system can be mutually beneficial in that the spare capacity in plants that may arise can be utilised. A trainee who gets his training in a work environment rather than in a training centre has a better chance of getting a job having had real job experience. I hope that in the discussions that are scheduled to take place those points will be considered.
I should like to refer to the disabled who are often forgotten when training is dealt with although there is reference to them in the White Paper. I commend the role of the rehabilitation board on their placements and on the work of their officers who try to assist disabled people. I realise we have a State quota for public service employment for the disabled but we must develop a higher preferential rate of aid for disabled people generally in the employment incentive scheme and the work experience programme. I hope a scheme can be evolved within the NRB to bring that about. I welcome the new role of the Department of Labour, combined with the manpower policy unit. I hope it will bring about a certain flexibility in operations.
There are two other areas I should like to refer to briefly. I will refer first to youth aid, particularly for disadvantaged youth. It is not so long since the social guarantee was established and I am glad to see that the structure is being maintained. It is more than a year since the liaison committee were set up to implement the social guarantee. The manpower levy has been changed, but I hope that the youth element in the scheme will be galvanised and strengthened and that the local liaison committees will spot early school leavers in disadvantaged areas so that they will be specifically targeted and guaranteed for monitoring for training and subsequent placement. I hope the Minister will respond to that in some detail.
I should like to refer to small business co-operatives. The Oireachtas Small Business Committee drew up a report on this. There are urgent changes required, for instance, the need to streamline the services in one State agency which would advise on the viability of a project, and to have a one stop shop in respect of all State agencies so that there would be vetting for grant aid approval. The committee recommended that the ICC would be the best to do that because they have a record of dealing with commercial viability and reality in business life. The YEA had no experience of this. This legislation is moving in a slightly different direction, and the ICC are not involved in the amalgamation provided for in the Bill. The Minister might give further consideration to this. We need legislation to define a co-operative and the establishment of co-operative venture funds, like the business expansion scheme.
We need a strong body like ACOT to develop rules or a blueprint for the development of co-operatives. Unfortunately, there are more pamphlets than co-operatives at the moment. I hope that there will be a cohesive policy for small business co-operatives as a response to our employment problem. It is desirable that it would be based on commercial reality rather than some nebulous suggestion that the State agency want to help, when what we need is to be cruel to be kind. At the end of the day we should not be aiding undertakings that are doomed to fail.
I should like to make a particular plea for my constituency in regard to the special facilities given to us. I hope the pilot schemes will be continued in 1987 and that we will get as many as we can handle. I should like to see a job centre opened in Enniscorthy. A subcommittee of the UDC there have made a submission to the Minister seeking an enterprise worker. The local committee did a detailed report on job proposals in the area through the YEA and I hope the Minister will be well disposed to it. I ask him to bear in mind that regionalisation as done by the health boards, the IDA and other State agencies would make Waterford the pivot for work in the south-east region. That would be unfair to places like Wexford and I hope decentralisation will not occur on that basis. There is an AnCO youth training workshop in Wexford——
The Deputy has a shopping list.
It is a small list for a small, poor, deprived area with the highest unemployment rate after Donegal and Louth. The AnCO temporary workshop there is due to run out at the end of the year and a permanent one is being sought. It requires departmental approval and I hope it will be forthcoming. I wish the legislation every success. I hope some of the suggestions I made will be seen as constructive and that they will be incorporated in the Minister's consideration.
Quite a lot of common sense has been spoken this morning and I hope I will not take from it, though I am sure the Minister expects some criticism from me. Before going into the Bill I wish once more to record my displeasure that senior officials coming to the House have to wear badges. I do not think it is sensible. I have protested already about it and have been criticised for doing so.
And the Deputy will be again because it is not relevant to the Bill.
I agree with the idea of identification but I do not think that a big plaster of a badge like that should be worn by people who have served the State well.
The Deputy is dead right.
Like my party's spokesman, I will not be opposing the Bill on Second Stage but I hope that between now and Committee Stage the points made by Deputy Ahern will be borne in mind by the Minister. I do not share some of the views expressed by Deputy Yates, though I agree with many of the things he said. I have reservations and misgivings about this new Authority. It is important that as many Members as possible would contribute to anything that is employment related, particularly when it involves the establishment of a new State body. Deputy Yates spoke about the danger of a new layer of bureaucracy. I am convinced of the need for greater co-operation between our various agencies. The National Manpower Service have made a great contribution both in difficult and in easy times but they were always without adequate resources. I look with an envious eye at other agencies, AnCO in particular, whose employees have greater flexibility, greater perks and greater remuneration for doing a similar job. Those differences have existed between the different agencies. AnCO have done and are still doing a great job. We have been told that there has been AnCO over-expenditure on newspapers. I do not know about that, but this can be a danger in a big establishment.
This is one of the fears I would have about this new body, all-embracing as it is. In reply to Deputy Ahern recently the Minister said that small is beautiful — he was referring to CERT. I agree with him. Our experience of big bodies has not been good. Deputy Yates spoke of accountability to this House. That is very important. When I was Minister I found it difficult enough to establish accountability even to the Minister. There is a danger that some State bodies will grow into empires.
In the section of the Bill constituting the Authority, if a member of the Authority is elected to either House of the Oireachtas, he ceases to be a member of that Authority. I know this is in all similar Bills, but I think the time has come to ask ourselves if we should change. Perhaps he should not have any remuneration if he is a member of the Authority. But there will be public servants on that Authority, so why not a political person who is elected by and has contact with people. One reason put forward for this condition was that elected representatives might have political affiliations. But let me give an example. Say, for instance, Deputy Michael Bell, a former trade union official, were appointed as a representative of this Authority and were elected to this House while a member. I would agree that his remuneration, if there was remuneration, should be stopped. But why should he not continue, if people in other walks of life can? Perhaps the Minister would explain that. Perhaps there are other reasons.
I have a criticism which I cannot pin on the shoulders of the present holder of the office, but I must revert back to what I believe is the principal reason for the introduction of this body. That is the establishment of the Youth Employment Agency. When that was being set up at the end of 1981 I questioned it and felt that it would not make the contribution that it was then claimed it would. It originated in a Labour Party manifesto; it was ill-thought out and had not been studied through. The new Government took over on 9 March but on 8 March the chief executive of the Youth Employment Agency was appointed. That was a bad decision and I was tempted on that occasion to scrap the whole thing except that I might do harm to some young people who might get employment as a result. But as far as I am concerned that agency got off to a bad start. I will not go into the uncertainties of the following weeks but within a short time rather elaborate plush offices were acquired, staff were acquired and they were all there before any schemes were introduced. That organisation grew side by side with the three that had already been there. The umbrella function that it was suggested in the House it should have never materialised. Here we are today introducing a Bill to try to bring in the four agencies.
I am not opposed to this measure despite some misgivings about it. But CERT is entitled to a special role. I sorry Deputy Yates has gone but I appreciate the reason he has gone and I am not being critical. I accept the sincerity with which he made his case this morning. But let me try to make the opposite case and I think when I make it it cannot be answered. When I first became Minister for Labour, certain Government Departments did not look favourably on CERT. They felt that CERT should be amalgamated in some obscure way and it was not spelt out how it should be done. There were other bigger agencies who looked enviously at CERT and would have liked to gobble it up. The Minister is lucky that the then chairman of CERT is not there now. If the late Michael Mullen were there now and saw this section reducing CERT under this body, he would have the Minister's door knocked down many times and would force the Minister to change his mind.
I am not so sure he has entirely departed.
The Minister is suggesting that I am making this case. I hope I can. There were problems in the organisation at that time which he, I hope with my co-operation, sorted out. As a result we saw a complete change in direction in that organisation, a wonderful new chief executive and new dynamism. Earlier on we were told about the necessity not to over-expend on the buildings. I was presented with a very elaborate programme of building which I knew I had no hope of getting through Merrion Street or the Department of Finance and recommended that they do something smaller that would fill the purpose. They did that very effectively and I was proud to open that building in Merrion Road in 1979. I suggest to the Minister that he recommend to the Council of CERT that that building should now be called "Michael Mullen House" or the "Michael Mullen Training Centre", to in some way commemorate that chairman who has now gone from us. That man who had such a commitment to and worked so hard for CERT deserves it. After the initial problems the organisation went from strength to strength. The hotel and catering industry will have a far greater role to play in the next 20 years than it had in the past 20 years with the expected growth in tourism between now and the beginning of the next century. We must be prepared for that and CERT have done much in the last decade winning international respect for the standard of our chefs and the awards they have won and so on.
It would be a retrograde step if that Authority lost its identity. Regardless of what the Council of CERT has said, I speak as somebody who has had a lot of contact with the hotel and catering industry in southwest Cork and Kerry and I know they would be very disappointed if that were to happen. I urge the Minister to re-examine on Committee Stage what he has done on this Bill. The Minister has said "small is beautiful". I fear that that organisation might be devoured. Deputy Ahern went into more detail, but I am making a broad, more general case, This should be examined between now and Committee Stage. If the Minister comes in with his amendment on Committee Stage we will be able to go all the way with him on the Bill. I do not suppose the Minister can direct the Council of AnCO — I could not do it in my day — but perhaps the Minister would suggest that the centre be called the Michael Mullen Training Centre or Michael Mullen House to honour the memory of that man. To be fair, I should say that I appointed his successor and I agonised a long time before I found somebody suitable. He has done an equally good job in that role. I felt at that time that somebody competent and capable would have to be a successor to Micky Mullen.
The Deputy made a good choice.
I thank the Minister. The next concern I have about the Bill which has been referred to by both Deputy Ahern and Deputy Yates is regionalisation. I will go further than either of those two went. It is no fault of the Minister or the Government but every time I pass by Bord na Móna headquarters it sickens me to think that those headquarters are centred here in Dublin when they should be in Birr, Portarlington or even Roscrea. I am sure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle would not object to it being in Roscrea.
In Nenagh.
Perhaps Roscrea would be nearer to Bord na Móna country and it is in my Euro constituency. Every time I pass those headquarters I think it is in the wrong place and I suggest to the Minister that not even this new Authority should have their headquarters in Dublin. If he is setting up a new Authority let him base them out of Dublin. We would love to have them in Cork. The Minister's colleague, the Lord Mayor of Cork, has been saying recently that we need a Government Department or a State agency to be based in Cork. We would welcome that. I hope that Cork will be the Minister's choice, but for goodness sake take it out of Dublin. The Minister will have read more closely than I have the projections for Dublin beyond the turn of the century. In my opinion they are terrifying, horrific and frightening. How that develoment of Dublin can be coped with I am not sure. In other words, centralisation is going to snarl up this part of the country and the rest of it is going to deteriorate.
I did a report recently in the EC on regional imbalances in the employment market, which of course are vast. In the preparation of that report I visited the OECD in Paris, where, I am sure like the Minister, I made some contacts and friends in my time as Minister for Labour. I met one of the officials there — not an Irishman — who said to me almost immediately, "What is happening in your country? Why are your Government becoming so centralised?" He was not referring to any specific Government. Of course. I took advantage to make my political point and to say that when I left Government as Minister for the Public Service, on my desk was a decentralisation programme that the administration of the day advised the new Government was too expensive, and it was scrapped. The answer he made to me was that not to do it in the long term would prove far more expensive. In drawing up that programme I met resistance from all sides. Centralised trade union people and the permanent administration had no anxiety for it. This must be overcome. I say to the Minister that the new Authority or agency, despite the difficulties which will be there and despite the fact that some of these Dublin based very capable and competent civil servants will give him all the explanations as to why they cannot be based outside Dublin——
Many of whom come from Cork and do not want to go home.
They often are the worst because they seem to want to preserve an identity down there of what they left, because that is nice at holiday times. However, wherever they come from, the Minister must resist those pressures. To do so would be a step in the right direction. Cork could do with this and the Minister's colleague, the Lord Mayor, has been screaming for a Government Department. In other words, although he does not like to say it publicity, he is criticial of the Government's decision to scrap the decentralisation programme. The new Authority should be located outside Dublin. Bord na Móna headquarters sticks in my throat every time I see it. It is not the Minister's fault but it is a reminder of what we should be doing.
After that I agree with the two previous speakers on the necessity for regionalisation. This legislation, what is covered by it and all the related employment matters and so on, affect every single constituency to a greater or lesser extent. What is often forgotten by the powers that be, as I said in this House last week on the CIE Bill, is that Cork — which I take because I know it better than anywhere else in the country such as Galway, Mayo, Kerry or Sligo — is 160 miles from Dublin. The Beara Peninsula or Dursey Sound is another 110 miles. That is a long way away. They are too often forgotten. Other Deputies in this House can go north west or south west and give other examples. There must be regional development, and on how it is to be done I am open to discussion. Deputy Ahern has mentioned the two extreme ways by which it can be done, a social welfare grouping of offices or alternatively in the health board areas. We must have regionalisation into the different counties and this provision must be built into the Bill because if we do not build it in here in this House the chances are that, despite the best intentions in the world, when it leaves this House somebody somewhere will say that regionalisation is not important any more, and it will die.
I read with interest the functions of the Authority and they are all very important. I have referred to CERT, and I want the Minister to remember my recommendation to the council of CERT that the building in Roebuck be called after Michael Mullen. Section 4(1) (e) (iii) of the Bill refers to "services consisting of the provision of guidance, advice and information in respect of choice of career and employment". I am very supportive of that being carried under the Authority because we have complained so often of the need for links between industry and education and between education and employment. I hope that paragraph emphasises the need for the Authority to get into education. We talk about politics — with a small p. I am not talking about semi-State but about the politics between Government Departments which can be very difficult too. I hope that the Minister when replying on Second Stage will confirm that this Authority will be enabled to co-operate with the schools and co-ordinate the career guidance levels.
Deputy Yates referred to the internal market, its size and our being there by 1992 and having about 320 million people to sell our wares and products to. We must take full advantage of that, and that is why I compliment AnCO on the Louvain project. I am given to understand that recent statistics show that, while the teaching of the French language is on the increase in our schools, the numbers learning German are going down. That is wrong and must be tackled immediately. We cannot hope to penetrate that new internal market to our best advantage without having good, highly trained Irish people with a commitment to selling Irish goods going in there with knowledge of the language that makes them competent to sell those goods in those countries without foreign agents. Agents have been very useful. They have helped us over the years, but for too long we have been lazily dependent on an English speaking market. CTT have done their part in language marketing skills and in our time in Government we allocated a sum of money to help them with that project. The AnCO project in Louvain is a step on the right road but we need more of that. That is why it is very important that this body be able to say to Education, "The numbers in German are going down. Why is that? Why is there not an bigger increase in the number of people learning French?" We must encourage people involved in tourism to become proficient in continental languages so that when tourists come here they can feel at home and able to communicate with us. Will the Minister let me know in his reply if this Authority will have power to help in this area?
There is not a reference to social welfare in the functions outlined here. Perhaps I have skipped over it but in his reply will the Minister let me know if this Authority will be able to find out exactly what is happening in social welfare exchanges so that there will be proper liaison with the social welfare officers?
I could be very critical of the failure of this Government in the job creation area. The areas most important to us at the moment relate to taxation and employment but they are not being tackled in a positive forward way by the Government. A lot remains to be done. I hope this Bill will improve the situation.
The YEA have not achieved much. Many of their projects have been unsuccessful and wasteful. The projects have helped some communities but all the responsibility cannot be laid on the shoulders of the YEA. The YEA got off to a bad start and they could not have shown a different result. The need for this Authority is largely because of the lack of thought and of research and development that went into creating the YEA. If this new agency can improve things it will be a step in the right direction.
AnCO provides a wonderful success story. They have grown enormously but, as a previous speaker said, they are overcentralised. I appreciate the needs of the greater Dublin area but even in my days in Government there was a reluctance among the permanent Civil Service to move north of the Liffey. Regionalisation even within Dublin city was confined and the River Liffey divided the thinking of many people. Even when office accommodation was very expensive on the south side and cheaper on the north side it was difficult to get people to move to the north side. That mentality will stifle all that this Bill and other Acts set out to do. We are slowly strangling and depriving the rest of the country. One of the things we constantly preach in the EC is the importance of the regional fund. When Dublin city can qualify for the same assistance under that regional fund as the remotest area in west Cork or Kerry, our own regional development will not occur and centralised government will go on. That must be changed.
AnCO are a success story and they provide a high standard of skill and training for many young people. I compliment them on their efforts. Times are hard and there are many young apprentices in the building trade whose apprenticeships have been interrupted. AnCO do their best but they cannot absorb all of them. The Louvain project was a great venture and I was proud to visit it during my time as a Member of the European Parliament and to be shown the work that AnCO did in that Irish college. This project gave young people the opportunity to learn the language and customs of the Belgium people as well as an opportunity to learn the skills of the building trade. That is a great thing. I support in this Bill the encouragement to do consultancy training services abroad. Having been to some of the new member states I am satisfied that AnCO's expertise will be very useful. It is very important that this Bill encourages us to become involved in that area. I visited a part of Spain where we were taken to see some industries and the need for training was very obvious as was the need for safety.
The National Manpower Service have had many difficulties. They were a very commited group and I want the Minister's assurance that there will not be redundancies among them and that they will not suffer loss or be forced to move. The Bill will remove some of the divisions but it will not remove all the tensions. It is important that this agency try to eliminate divisions. It will not be easy. I would not suggest a person to be appointed as chairman but I support Deputy Ahern's contention that it should be a full time appointment. The job demands that. The job will entail a lot of negotiating and a lot of compromise and the success or failure of this agency could depend on it. A dedicated person will have to try to pull strings together — strings which will not willingly come together.
I have a very high regard for civil servants but in 1981 and 1982, when three elections were held, some civil servants felt they were in charge. I exempt the two people at present in the House from my criticism. It was a frame of mind which developed——
In fairness, they had to get on with the job of running the country.
Of course, but the Minister should not fall into this trap until he hears what I have to say. A colleague of the Minister attended a lunch with good, committed Cork industrialists and they were humiliated by not being introduced by name or by reference to their companies to foreign industrialists because confidentiality had to be preserved.
CERT should be given their own identity outside the new Authority and I will put down amendments in this regard on Committee Stage. They are closely linked to hotels and trade unions and their governing council cannot be improved upon. Placement and industrial training is a more general area but hotel and catering generally is a completely different area which is related to a specific industry. The growth of industrial catering is very important but the tourist industry is even more important. Our weather is not ideal from the point of view of the holidaymaker but we have other attractions such as golf, fishing, shooting and forestry plantations. We should be able to sell these amenities to the potential 320 million people who could be attracted here. I am satisfied there is a vast market to tap and that CERT have a major role to play.
I was very glad to read in The Cork Examiner this morning that at last a ferry is to be provided although the Government cannot claim any credit for it——
They put up some money for it. Do not spoil an otherwise excellent speech.
I cannot be too complimentary after four years but I am glad there is good news at last about the ferry as it will help to develop an industry which, for many reasons, has suffered over the years.
Will the Minister give an assurance that no employees will be affected in any of the existing agencies as a result of setting up this new Authority? He should also ensure that there is accountability to the House. The Minister should not be rebuffed by the Department of Education because I can give examples of schools where pupils have to select languages to study for the leaving certificate. However, some schools do not have enough teachers for certain languages which is very disheartening for the pupils. Education should be more closely linked to our potential development in industry and where the jobs will be available. It is quite in order to have someone from the Department of Education on the Authority but it can create problems because there may be a little tension when that person is defending the Department's policies.
I again want to emphasise that there should be decentralisation. However, this can be discussed on Committee Stage because it is very important to have a good Bill. If the Minister gives satisfactory replies to my questions there will be no problems with this side of the House.
I am glad of the opportunity to contribute to the Bill as I have been looking forward to its introduction. It is no secret that Deputy Ahern has been calling for the consolidation of the various agencies within the manpower services. Indeed, he published findings some time ago which underlined that fact.
I was not here when the Minister was speaking but I read a copy of his speech. I wish to refer to CERT but I do not want to overlook the many fine points in the Minister's speech and the general thrust of the legislation. It makes sense in a general rationalisation and tidying-up operation to gather together the various agencies which are trying to find jobs and to train people and to disseminate information throughout the country on a regional basis. I am being parochial in saying I hope Athlone will be one of the designated regions as we already have a major centre for AnCO and a very strong NMS office. Athlone is ideally placed to take in catchment areas from a great many counties and, as the structures are already there, I hope that the curriculum unit of the Department of Education will be based there also, if the Minister for Education has his way.
I hope to be constructive about the various agencies involved. I am sure that most public representatives must have had dealings with AnCO over the years. They have been very active and correct in the way they have gone about providing employment. I am always struck by the liaison they have with the National Manpower Service. That area is particularly productive.
Due to a lack of forecasting knowledge AnCO have sometimes mounted courses which have not been of relevance to the job market or have often provided courses for which there are no future job opportunities. They are now much more precise in this regard. Many industries in the machinery line — again I am talking about the Athlone area — now seek a young person with a proven AnCO certification. I hope that that preciseness will continue. It should be at its optimum in this type of regional board where there will be closer liaison with local agencies. While each of the separate agencies have been excellent to a greater or lesser degree or have faults to a greater or lesser degree, they have suffered from being within their own parameters and they have not been able to reach out to other agencies. I hope AnCO will continue along the path they have been following with regard to the back-to-work scheme for women and will continue to promote women throughout their career structures and will take on more women as trainees in their various courses.
It is alarming to note that the number of women taking part in these courses is very low. I am not blaming AnCO for that. The fault lies in the educational system. Deputy Fitzgerald touched upon the fact that the take-up by young women of subjects which appear to be outside the traditional area has been very low. Great emphasis will have to be placed on that fact because the traditional job market has contracted particularly in the secretarial area. I get increasinly angry when between 30 and 40 young women who have just finished school tell me that they are going to do a secretarial course. The increase in office technology and techniques has meant that the market for secretarial skills is diminishing greatly. Yet, more and more women are doing secretarial courses now with the vague idea that at the end of that course they will obtain an office job which is clean and comfortable and pressure free and which will lead to something very safe. As the market has contracted, those jobs are not there for young women. I hope that this agency will aggressively and actively attack those assumptions and disturb the complacency of teachers, parents and young people who still think that after the years of recession that the Civil Service or safe office job with a pension is still there for the taking. Those days are long gone.
I disagree with Deputy Fitzgerald who said there was a bias against language courses in second level schools. That has resulted because of the cutbacks in education which were made at the end of 1982. Since that time if a teacher leaves, dies, gets ill or moves away, the principal cannot replace that teacher. Post-primary or secondary schools cannot replace that teacher. Therefore, the principal is faced with the problem of changing about the choice of subjects to comply with the decreased number of teachers. If girls have the skill or the IQ necessary they should study a subject like honours maths. This subject is very important for later development in the chemical or engineering industries. Classes in honours maths, the science subjects, woodwork and languages have had to be restricted except in community and comprehensive schools. Secondary and vocational schools have not been able to cope with the fall-off in teacher numbers. That is the reason classes in German and other subjects have not been held. Only 4.6 per cent of leaving certificate students took German in 1985. That is an appallingly low number. Deputy Yates mentioned that our job market was now Europe because of the declining birth rate in those countries. As a result, learning the languages of those countries will become more important. No longer should French be the mandatory subject to be studied. German and Spanish should be also taught. The latter has become the fastest growing language in the Community.
AnCO in their new format should adopt an aggressive approach with regard to the recruitment of women into their training courses. They should consider the relevance of the type of courses they provide. We cannot afford superfluity of courses in areas where there will not be jobs in the future. Our training courses will have to be geared towards the economic wants of the country or the markets we are seeking to enter. Three or four years ago it would have been quite acceptable for one to do a course for which there did not seem to be a market but we cannot afford that any longer. We have to concentrate on courses where the openings will be.
AnCO have been a proven success. I saw a survey recently which showed that the uptake of AnCO students into jobs is very good. If there was follow-up would it show whether that uptake was of a lasting quality? Did those courses enable the participants to move from one area of job opportunity to another? From my own knowledge, and it is quite extensive within the Athlone area as we have a major centre, I know that the National Manpower Service have been doing a good job, sometimes in very bad circumstances. The new agency is to be called NETA. There were many objections to the terminology. It was one area where people accepted the word "manpower" to mean person power.
It is a more accurate description of the title. It includes the word "employment".
The National Manpower Service have suffered greatly from the provision of technology in the carrying out of their duties. I shudder to think what Dublin must be like where huge numbers pass through the agency daily. Even in Athlone which services Mullingar and other areas a large number of people come to be registered. Their cases have to be followed up and they have to be sent for interviews for particular jobs. To provide that service demands very sophisticated technology. I have found that the personnel in the manpower offices are very committed to their jobs and try to do their best in very difficult circumstances. If there is only one job it is very difficult to deal with 50 or 60 people who are looking for that job. These manpower officers will gain by being in daily contact with the other agencies and co-ordinating their activities. I hope that in this streamlining the NMS will retain their very excellent personnel, particularly the youth placement officers.
In the Athlone area one officer was designated as the youth placement officer. Anybody under 25 years of age looking for advice or for a job went to see him. Young people leaving school could attach themselves to the youth placement officer in Athlone because he was sympathetic to their aspirations. We were very lucky in Athlone because we had a very dedicated officer.
I viewed with a little alarm the removal of the word "youth" form the youth employment levy and hoped this did not mean there would be less emphasis on youth. For many years to come there will still be a great need for emphasis on youth training schemes, youth employment, youth placement and so on.
I would like to see the NMS go more into schools. With the Youth Employment Agency they have been engaged on the social guarantee scheme and the schools have co-operated in this venture. But in this new format I want to see the agencies becoming more public and breaking down the barriers between education and work-training. I realise I should not be saying this because sometimes people in education feel that education is their area, and that classrooms are to instil educative values in young people. That will never change because the values of education remain constant. Appreciation, knowledge, worth and personal development will always be the mainstay of education. Young people leaving school know that the world is changing and there should be a balance between opportunity and training and information about the world outside school. I do not think education should be divorced from the outside world. I would like to see a more workmanlike relationship between the new agency and the school authorities, not just the comprehensive and vocational sectors but the secondary system as well.
Some years ago there was the schools-industry linked scheme in which I participated as a teacher. Deputy Tom Nolan was Minister at the time, and Athlone and Finglas, Dublin, were the two centres chosen for the pilot scheme. That was a very useful scheme because not alone did the career guidance teacher volunteer to go on the committee, but a notice was put on the board in my school that if any other teacher wanted to go on this committee, she would be very welcome. I joined that committee and found it very helpful. It broke down barriers between parents, industrialists, workers, teachers and students. I never saw an evaluation of that schools-industry link. As a committee we ceased after about two years but we carried out a series of pilot programmes. I am talking about 1979-80 when the world was still full of golden opportunities. When I became a Member of this House I put down a parliamentary question asking if the results of that scheme had been evaluated. The reply I got was that it had not been evaluated. I believe there should be a strengthening of that schools-industry link and I would like to see that happen.
I am aware of the work done by the Youth Employment Agency. Of course they have had their failures. Anything worth its salt will have a fair share of failures because new ideas may, of themselves, evoke hostility, sometimes outright resistance and, at best, a hesitancy of response. In some areas these ideas proposed by the Youth Employment Agency have been ideological and innovative and some of them have even been a success, but I want to talk about their input into the education field. I had not been spokesman on Education very long when I was invited to launch school videos which had been made by a committee of the YEA in conjunction with guidance councillors. The Department seconded a serving teacher to work with this committee, which was composed of representatives of ICTU, guidance counsellors and young people involved in the Youth Employment Agency. They made more than two dozen educational videos that were geared towards the 15 to 18 age group and which showed the world at work. These films were very informative and useful. There were two basic films. The first told students how to prepare for an interview and the second identified the various agencies and what the agencies could do for young people. Obviously that film will have to be updated. The message in these films was extraordinarily simple because they immediately clarified for me problems I come across regularly at my clinics. When young people come to me asking about jobs I ask them if they have been to the NMS and put down their names. I tell them they must keep going back there and keep in touch and I ask them how they dress when going for interviews. That video answered all these questions. It gave sound, sane advice. The message was that young people should go after jobs, the jobs do not come to them, that young people must get training and keep looking for jobs and that there are agencies there to help them, but young people in school are not being told about such agencies.
People may say there are guidance councillors in most schools nowadays, but there has been a reduction in those numbers regrettably because of cutbacks. I commend these officers for their work on the committee which produced these videos. These officers may have been reluctant to get involved in the beginning, but those I have spoken to are very pleased with the results because they realise these films enhance their role rather than diminish it. There is need for much more to be done in this area.
Career guidance officers and guidance councillors were first employed at a time when girls were prepared for the Civil Service, a profession or a safe office job. At that time there was an immediate place for the school leaver, but that is not so any longer. The emphasis must change and the role of the guidance counsellor must change too.
It would be one of my wishes that career guidance counsellors would have their role evaluated, that they would see all of what I have mentioned as an enhancement of their role, as a sort of step-up-the-ladder for them. In many schools now they are devoting some hours to counselling and some to teaching. I should like to see that role expanded into the general teacher body. It should be remembered that every teacher in a post-primary school, faced with a class of 30 to 40 pupils, becomes a guidance counsellor or a life skills counsellor. They are there to teach English, French, history, chemistry or mathematics but they are there also to advise and guide their pupils on many aspects of life which arise in the course of their work and some subjects lend themselves to that.
This kind of guidance activity should be extended into the broader school curriculum affording second-level teachers that opportunity by way of their mediation skills. I should like to see inservice courses for teachers so that they would be able to utilise their mediation skills, thereby expanding their everyday role. Those videos and the deliberations giving rise to them have had an enormous impact on inculcating into young people a practical appreciation of the outside world and how they should cope with it. I do not know whether the work of that committee is continuing — I am sure they are not sitting back — but have taken up other activities. I would hope they would continue that type of work because it is dependent on constant research into changing work patterns not alone here but throughout the world. That kind of activity should be ongoing, should be the subject of constant research and remain an integral part of the Youth Employment Agency when it is subsumed into the new NETA. I hope I shall not be spokesperson on Education for this party much longer; in other words, I hope there will be a general election.
I have always been interested in this area throughout my years of teaching and because of my industrial background growing up in Athlone. Education should not be threatened by a spill-over from any agency. Those agencies must now have a public face in the marketplace, display their wares, say what they are about and are doing. If that is done openly between the Departments of Education and Labour it can only be to the good of young people which is what we are all about. There is a need to make education generally more relevant to the outside world. Indeed there is an important Bill in the offing — the National Board for Curriculum and Assessment Bill, 1986 — which it is hoped to give a Second Reading to in the House next week. Its provisions intertwine with many of those contained in this one. It proposes a broadening of the curriculum, continuing research and development into the world of learning and a link-up with the various agencies. Therefore it is timely that these two Bills are before the House. Indeed the two Ministers who produced them are to be commended.
I want to talk now about CERT. The Minister will know what I have to say. No doubt he has heard the same from other speakers and will hear it repeated as our debate continues.
No doubt it will sound very persuasive coming from the Deputy.
I thank the Minister for that comment. Here again I feel implicated in the educational sense. That is why I am gearing what I have to say more toward the educational aspect than any other. We all know that CERT has been a great success. Of course, the other agencies have also, to a greater or lesser extent. CERT is unique in that, first, its name is identifiable. I hazard a guess that if one went out into Kildare Street, stopped three people in a row and carried out one's own opinion poll asking them what is CERT, they would say it has something to do with hotels, with training young people for jobs in the hotel industry. They would know immediately what it meant, and that is some achievement. I have followed the activities of CERT since their inception. I remember when my family owned a hotel, the Hudson Bay Hotel in Athlone, and when my father was a Deputy we participated in one of the first CERT training schemes for students. At that time those courses were carried on in the Great Southern Hotels in places like Bundoran and further north. Would the Minister think about taking his hands off CERT, leaving them a separate identity, because they have been a success not just nationally but internationally as well.
It can be said that the White Paper on Manpower Policy published in September last successfully addressed all of the relevant manpower issues and their relationship to education over the past 23 years. That is some time to have been in existence and to have gone from success to success. CERT have a record of innovation, having adopted an enlightening approach to all of their activities. In particular they are to be complimented on the way they have co-operated with the existing educational establishments and maintained an educational component in all of their courses.
Of course the links between CERT and the VEC educational system date back to 1963 when CERT took on an unplanned system and developed it within the educational system. Now there are CERT students in seven colleges throughout the country, some 2,000 of them, grant aided, with a 100 per cent job placement record. I am now talking about the third level sector. I shall come to second level and the vocation preparation and training programmes in a moment. It does not make any sense to interfere with a system which has met with such success. CERT has been the result of years of careful planning. They have never operated outside the educational sphere, have never duplicated existing VEC facilities. I wish the same could be said of other agencies. As we know, they have their national craft curricula and their certification board which took over the City and Guilds very successfully, and have been recognised for so doing. The board represent the ideal model for integrating education and training, all of which is relevant to what I am saying.
The CERT formal training activity for school leavers is undertaken within the VEC system and avoids duplication. It also ensures regionalisation about which we spoke earlier. It guarantees an educational dimension in training programmes, demonstrating the longstanding, co-operative relationship between them. They have also taken on board the transition of pupils from educational establishments to working life, a dominant theme in the White Paper. They were the real forerunners of the vocation preparation and training courses, their model proving to be the formula for the later development of those programmes. I would have a word of warning in general about the VPT courses because, with the intake of other countries into the EC, the moneys to be devoted to these courses will diminish. Therefore we should be thinking of other ways of offsetting that shortfall.
CERT were also the first of the manpower agencies to introduce into their full time courses the important personal development programme of social and life skills. As I have said, all of the CERT courses do not just cover the basic skills necessary for such development but have a component, liberal arts stream. It would be very wrong if that important element of NETA were to be removed.
There is so much more I could have said. I want to compliment the Minister on the social employment scheme. The Minister knows from the personal dealings I have had with him that I consider that scheme to have been very innovative and expertly handled by the National Manpower Service. Long may it continue. I hope the Minister will receive the necessary finance for next year and that the numbers will increase from 10,000 to 30,000, disregarding what Deputy Yates said about getting hung up on numbers.
I commed the Bill but I would ask the Minister to exclude CERT because they have been too much of a success to be subsumed and lose their identity.
I hope that in this discussion any criticisms that will be made about the Minister's policy will not be accepted as——
Will the Deputy please move the Adjournment?
