Vol. 405 No. 7
12 Mr. T. O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Labour if he will outline the proposals which the Government propose to implement on targeted employment measures for the long term unemployed under the heading firms providing additional places for those who are long term unemployed with the benefit of employment incentives as contained in section 7 of the Programme for Economic and Social Progress; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The Programme for Economic and Social Progress lists a major assault on long term unemployment as one of the key objectives of the long term strategy being proposed in the programme.
The broad outline of an area based response to long term unemployment is set out in section VII of the programme. The response will be area based, will have local communities as the primary movers, will integrate the various existing initiatives, will involve a progression, in particular to ensuring second-chance education leading to qualifications and, therefore, with a greater real possibility of a job. In this latter connection, I would emphasise that employers have a major role to play in providing employment opportunities for the long term unemployed.
The programme provides for the Central Review Committee to recommend appropriate arrangements to the Government for decision on such matters as a structure to bring the proposals into existence and monitoring and co-ordination arrangements. Pending a meeting of the committee it would be premature to comment on individual aspects of the approach such as the provision of employment incentives.
Will the Minister agree that this section in the programme is largely aspirational and does not contain specific proposals? It is not acceptable for the Minister to say it is premature to make any details known at this stage. We have the worst job creation record in Europe at the moment with the exception of Greece. Does the Minister think sufficient attention has been paid in the programme to providing jobs, particularly for the long term unemployed?
The Deputy will be aware that the last programme far exceeded expectations. This programme aims at 60,000 jobs in manufacturing and services and 15,000 jobs in tourism. We hope it will pass that. Section VII is about an area based attack on long term unemployment and using education, social welfare, training, labour and other aspects to try to tackle long term unemployment. As the programme provides, the Central Review Committee will see how best that should be tackled. There were questions to the Taoiseach by the Leader of the Opposition some weeks ago and the Taoiseach expanded on that. I do not think there is anything pious or aspirational about it. There is a meeting this afternoon between the social partners and officials to work out the precise details, but it will involve local organisations, FÁS, Education, health boards, local communities and action groups, and I believe it will be successful. The small print of how exactly they will interrelate with one another will be spelled out later.
Will the Minister identify the local organisations? I trust he is referring specifically to voluntary organisations. Whose responsibility is it to create jobs? Is it the responsibility of the Government the trade unions or the employers?
It is the Government's number one priority. I would be glad to discuss job creation for the afternoon, but the Deputy asked about the long term unemployed and other aspects. It is the Government's priority, primarily with the agencies which come under the Department of Industry and Commerce. The Minister for Labour is involved in helping those who cannot find a job. He is involved all the time with about 30,000 people. The communities and organisations involved are those well known bodies who are in every region of the country are involved in action programmes to assist long term unemployed people. The groups are involved usually with the Departments of Education, Labour and Social Welfare. Any other body anxious to participate should be involved once they positively want to help long term unemployed people.
Let us not forget the time limit for these questions. I want to dispose of all the questions, if possible. I want to move to another question.
What incentives are available to companies who would be inclined to employ the long term unemployed?
There is the employment allowance scheme, but I hope that in the black spots where we have very high levels of long term unemployment — over 25 per cent and in many places over 50 per cent progressively — we will be able to give incentive to employers who target long term unemployed people or take from the live register people who have gone through particular courses. The success of this scheme over anything that has been done to date will be its progression with courses, schemes, work experience and education leading to a job, not just what we have done for too long, giving somebody the opportunity for 12 months and then forgetting about them after that.
Let us have another question and have regard to brevity in dealing with priority questions.
