My party and I welcome and support the recently announced policy drive aimed at attracting industrial investment into provincial towns. The principle of targeting areas of special needs is a good one which I hope will be vigorously implemented. However, my concern is that Cork city will yet again be passed over in this new drive. That is why I have sought to raise this matter on the Adjournment to urge the Minister for Enterprise and Employment and the Government to put in place a parallel package of incentives for urban unemployment blackspots, specifically in Cork city.
Unemployment is at crisis point. There are now almost 18,000 people registered as unemployed in Cork city. The number out of work has risen since the rainbow coalition assumed office in 1994. Of those registered as unemployed, some 5,000 are under the age of 25. There is a clear transfer from school to the dole and it is alarming how quickly short-term unemployment can become long-term.
Last year, 71 per cent of all new jobs announced by the IDA went to the greater Dublin area. Only 7 per cent went to Cork. Since Digital closed in 1993, more than 3,500 new jobs have been announced for Galway. The Plassey technological park in Limerick is doing extremely well and Cork is losing out all the time. There is a clear need for a major Government initiative to attract jobs to Cork city, specifically disadvantaged areas such as the northside of the city. This cannot be emphasised enough.
A study carried out last year demonstrated that, in certain communities in the city, unemployment is as high as 54 per cent and there are housing estates in my constituency where unemployment is as high as 80 per cent. This is a crisis. If this current trend is allowed to continue for another five years and unless there is direct intervention now, people with jobs will be in the minority in large tracts of the northside of Cork city. The quality of life in those areas is deteriorating rapidly despite the best efforts of local communities. Long-term unemployment is a recipe for social disaster. It brings in its wake crime, drugs and a breakdown of family life. At a time of great prosperity for the fortunate few, to all intents and purposes many of my constituents have been cruelly cut off from the normal workings of the market economy. We have created a strange society in modern Ireland. On the one hand we have an economic boom and on the other we have mass unemployment. We have labour shortages, yet we continue to impose penal tax rates on anyone who is willing to take up or create a job. The tax problem must be tackled, but that alone will not rectify the position I described.
The Government must upgrade the infrastructure in Cork-North Central. To date the Government has failed to honour its commitment to expedite the much needed by-pass at Blackpool. Cork continues to suffer the economic consequences of the failure to provide a modern infrastructure. We must also direct resources into education and training. It is regrettable that we spend in excess of £300 million annually on FÁS training schemes and we now have a skills shortage. That area must be addressed. Will the Minister direct the IDA to put in place a package that will effectively tackle the unemployment crisis in Cork city? Natural justice demands no less.
