I should like to second the motion in the name of the Labour Party which Deputy Quinn has covered more than adequately in his introduction. I fully concur in everything he had to say. I should like to identify a number of areas warranting attention from the broad thrust of his introductory comments.
I was in London recently attending a Drogheda function, representing my town, at which I thought there would be a reasonable attendance but I was absolutely amazed when upwards of 1,000 young people turned up, all from the Drogheda area. I gather that the attendance at another function held shortly thereafter by the Dundalk Association — which I was unable to attend — exceeded that number. While I was there I could not help thinking of all the talk about the reduction in the levels of unemployment. The Minister and Members on all sides of the House know that this has become a somewhat farcical position since the figures being quoted do not take account at all of the many thousands of young people who continue to emigrate.
If one takes the example of those two towns, Drogheda and Dundalk, and multiplies those figures right across the country, from Wexford to Galway to Tralee, and in respect of all the other urban and rural areas, then it is frightening to think of the numbers of young people working in cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester. Indeed, not alone in the United Kingdom but as far away as Australia, Canada and America.
I listen to this massive public relations exercise about us endeavouring to create a good climate; one would think we were talking about the weather. Since we are certainly not talking about factual employment position we must be talking about the weather. All I can observe are more and more young people emigrating with fewer and fewer jobs for them at home.
In addition we have entered an era — of which the Minister and at least two of his colleagues, particularly the Minister for Labour, will be aware — in which many young people working in the commercial sector do so for a pittance. The norm now is part-time, temporary workers. If such people are to be included in these magical figures which are thrown at us constantly, as workers in gainful employment, we are merely trying to fool ourselves. We are not fooling the young people who come to my clinic or those of any of my colleagues on the Opposition benches nor, I suspect, those who attend the clinics of members of the parties in Government. Such young people will tell you that they work 40, 50 and 60 hours a week for a mere £30 or £40, employed by large stores such as Dunnes, or multinationals who pay them a pittance on a temporary or permanent part-time basis. They all feature in the statistics trotted out to us constantly by these professional public relations people who tell us what a good climate we have for employment.
That is something about which very little has been done despite the fact that the Labour Party have consistently raised the issue in the House and requested Government action in relation to it. These young people continue to be exploited, many are forced to emigrate. It is an insult to them to have to work at that level for such reward. In the context of the Programme for National Recovery it is contended that working class people, people on the shop or factory floor, have benefited therefrom. What benefit has there been for the unorganised workers, virtual slaves, in employment? Then we talk about poverty in relation to people in receipt of unemployment benefit, assistance or other forms of social welfare payments. It should be realised that there is a hell of a lot of poverty amongst young people who are forced to work in these part-time jobs because of prevailing circumstances.
Therefore, it will be clearly seen that we are merely fooling ourselves when we endeavour to maintain that the levels of unemployment are being reduced, that the climate is improving. Even the weather is not good at present but, when we talk about a good climate, certainly we are not talking about people employed in these part-time, temporary jobs or those not employed at all.
Also within the context of the Programme for National Recovery we observe that something in the region of 17,000 public service jobs have been lost. Those of us here — and there are many — involved in local authorities can observe it first hand, whether it be in Wexford, Wicklow, Kerry or elsewhere, where full-time workers, craftsmen, road workers and even administrators were allowed take early retirement resulting in almost 17,000 public service jobs having been lost. As a consequence, the overall infrastructure of local government has virtually fallen apart. Had we the requisite money to carry out the much needed work on roads and local authority services we would not have the people to undertake the relevant tasks; most of them have emigrated. Most of them thought they could avail of early retirement or the redundancy package proposed by this Government and would get gainful employment afterwards. That did not happen. Those people are unemployed here or, alternatively, are working in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
In the two main urban districts in County Louth there has not been one solitary local authority house built for four years. Having spoken to my colleagues here I know the same obtains in other areas. Never in the history of my county, and certainly neither my home town, has that happened. Yet it is occurring in towns and cities all over the country. The local authority housing lists are increasing weekly. Again, just as in the case of unemployment, the safety valve has been emigration. If all those young married people were at home there would be a revolution here; we would not have jobs for them, they would be on low levels of social welfare benefits, and we would have nowhere to house them. Yet we talk about a good climate.
I hear constantly of Government policy preparing for the so-called upturn. What kind of upturn can there be when private industry is no longer encouraged to create apprenticeships? The level of apprenticeships nationwide has dropped by almost 75 per cent. It is almost impossible for any young person to gain an apprenticeship now to any trade. This means that, in the not-to-distant future, we will not have sufficient skilled craftsmen to cater for the present climate, never mind an improved one. One cannot gain access to a FÁS training centre unless one is sponsored by private industry, whereas heretofore young people could spend an initial year in a FÁS training centre and progress from there. That possibility has been eliminated. They cannot gain entry to a FÁS training centre by way of apprenticeship. Employers in the private and public sectors are no longer sponsoring young people for apprenticeship. Deputy Quinn, a former Minister for Labour, knows this. He knows the encouragement he gave to people to obtain some form of employment when he introduced the social employment scheme, which was launched in my home town at a level of £70 weekly. What happened? The Government came into power and reduced it to £60.
Look at what is happening in Waterford Glass where the employers tried to reduce the level of earnings. Here the Government just came in and wiped £10 off £70 a week for a social employment scheme bringing it down to £60. Then we heard the good news one morning that it was being increased by approximately £5, but that was only half of what it had been reduced by. This is the type of public relations that gets right under my skin. How can the Minister tell a person on £65 a week that he is okay and can pay his way out of that? How can he tell that person he is not living in poverty? The Minister need not tell that to the young people I know.
The local government scene is such that the normal programme of local government cannot now be carried out. We do not have the money, for a start, but even if we did we do not have the people to repair the roads or anything else. Yet the Minister for the Environment tries to create the impression publicly that everything is okay with local authorities. I, as a member of two local authorities know, and my colleagues know, as does everybody in this House, that the whole local authority scene has absolutely collapsed.
Let the Minister try to tell a widow on £52 a week, or a single person living alone on something similar, that there is no poverty in the country, that the climate is good and the weather is getting better, and he or she will tell the Minister what to do and how difficult it is to even feed themselves, never mind indulging in any social activity at all.
I want to wind up my ten minutes by reminding the Minister that in the Border area of Dundalk and County Louth as a whole where I come from, there is up to 30 per cent unemployment. It is not even the 17 per cent on a national basis but 30 per cent, and that is not counting all the young people and not so young people who have emigrated. If the Minister wants to make a positive contribution to the development of the economy he must start at the Border and bring tax harmonisation and get the VAT and excise duties down to the levels that obtain elsewhere in the UK. Then we might at least be on a competitive footing and some of the garages and shops that have closed might reopen. How can anybody tell me there is no poverty in the country when I am living in an area where there is 30 per cent unemployment? When I read in The Irish Times, the Irish Independent or The Irish Press what the Minister for Finance has been saying I have to remind myself that I am awake and not merely dreaming. It is about time that we were collectively honest with the public and admit that this is a massive public relations exercise, that we are only trying to fool the people.
