Jim Mitchell
Question:3 Mr. J. Mitchell asked the Taoiseach if he will outline the total net emigration for the latest five years for which there are figures; and the percentage of workforce represented by that figure.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Net Emigration.
In the 1986-1991 intercensal period it is estimated that outward migration exceeded inward migration by about 136,500 persons. This figure is derived as a residual by subtracting the natural increase in the population — that is the number of births less the number of deaths — from the change in population as measured by the 1986 and 1991 Censuses of Population.
Arithmetically it may be calculated that this figure is equivalent to 10.3 per cent of the workforce as measured in the April 1991 Labour Force Survey. Such a calculation is not, however, very meaningful since the net migration figure represents the difference between two unknown gross flows over a five-year period which include persons who are not normally attached to the labour force, for example children, retired persons and non-working spouses.
No matter what excuses the Minister makes, he has, in the answers to these two questions, disclosed that 32.1 per cent of the workforce have failed to get employment in the last four years and that is before we take the April figures into account. Will the Minister not agree that this is failure on a grand scale, and that the Government have no policy to deal with unemployment?
Policy matters do not arise now.
The Deputy is rather disingenuously combining two sets of percentages in the two questions which cannot be related. If the Deputy listened to what I said he would realise that 10.3 per cent of the workforce is not a meaningful calculation as it includes children, retired persons and other people who are not part of the workforce.
If I concede the Minister's point that we should exclude the small number of children estimated to have emigrated——
Has the Deputy the figure?
If the Minister does not think that they should be included, why should people over 55 without a job be excluded?
I will send a written copy of my answer to Deputy Mitchell to enable him to understand it. I explained that point earlier.
I know the figures only too well, as do all of those 425,000 people who failed to get jobs under this Government, and I hope they will remember it when it comes to an election.
On emigration, I do not know how Deputy Mitchell could know how many people have emigrated for reasons other than jobs. If Fine Gael stopped pussyfooting about the employment issue and joined the committee they might be able to make a more positive contribution than they are making at the moment.
This should not give rise to argument.
Would the Minister agree that the emigration figures he has just cited for the latest five years is twice the number for the preceding five years and that the unemployment figures he has just cited for March 1992 are almost twice the registered figure when his Government came into office?
I am proceeding now to questions nominated for priority. May I say, as is my wont at this stage, that these are questions for which 15 minutes only is provided in Standing Orders. I seek, therefore, the co-operation of all the Deputies concerned so that we may dispose of the five questions before us in a fair and equitable manner.