The Senator proposing the motion has 30 minutes and no other Senator may speak for longer than 15 minutes.
Youth Unemployment: Motion.
I move:
That Seanad Éireann asks the Government to state, in view of the soaring and totally unacceptable levels of youth unemployment, the steps they propose to take to halt this spiral and to provide meaningful employment for our young population.
I am anxious that Government Senators will refrain from using the well-worn, spendthrift Fianna Fáil policies to which they have consistently referred as accounting for all the ills at present besetting us. I do not doubt that there were mistakes made with regard to fiscal policy over those years and that they were accentuated by an unexpected second world oil crisis. However, if one is to examine the 1973 to 1977 Coalition Government and the policies of the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Richie Ryan, one finds that under their economic policy at that time planning was thrown out the window and deficit financing introduced.
One could seek another scapegoat. However I am anxious that this be a mature debate in which the horrific problem of unemployment is taken out of that kind of political arena and faced up to in a reasonable and fair manner. I should like to see this three-hour debate requested by us used fully in debating these ills, with a view to finding a solution and without wasting time. I would prefer not to hear the Minister expound the theory that slightly reduced interest rates — which were raised artificially by over 2 per cent last March — lowering inflation and increased exports hold out radical promise for rapid growth of employment when all the indications are to the contrary. These improvements, such as they are, may be welcome but the crisis of job opportunity for our growing population goes much deeper.
Therefore in this motion we want to establish what are the real intentions of the Government in that regard. We hope the Minister will outline in detail the schemes he has in mind to redress this tragic situation. We do not expect a miracle — this is a deep-seated problem — but we insist on getting from the Government a more enlightened and hopeful sign than the barren, inept and totally anti-investment and anti-incentive thinking that has clearly dominated their consideration of this matter to date. It is not too late to change. We will gladly welcome a change if we see any evidence of one. To do this is to endeavour to cater for the most crucial central and captivating problem confronting this country and its politicians today. As a public representative I would not consider it worth-while to be in public life if I felt that, in this crucial area, we were unable to cope in some reasonable way.
Surveys undertaken in different parts of the world have shown clearly that young people who are continuously unemployed for a period of three years on leaving school are already on the road to being unemployable. This is a shocking condemnation and a deprivation of ordinary human dignity. Then, if employment situations were to improve, the market takes up the qualified people at that time and relegates to the dust heap of no opportunity those groups who failed to get jobs in the intervening years. It is precisely because of this likely phenomenon that this motion has been put down. I and my colleagues regard it as the number one priority for the country. Ignored it will be the most lethal weapon for the destruction of democracy as we know it.
There are many competing agencies in the fields of youth employment. Can we afford a bureacratic row between AnCo and the Youth Employment Agency about control of this or that training or employment programme? Are they bereft of ideas as each month passes and the dole queues grow longer? It is estimated that there are now almost 100,000 young people, including those leaving school this year, seeking employment. A few short years ago a former Taoiseach said that any Government presiding over unemployment figures exceeding 100,000 would not be entitled to be re-elected. We are now in the depths of a situation in which that figure has virtually doubled and is, by any standard, of crisis proportions. The misery and suffering of its consequences cannot be quantified. It is fundamentally unjust that these trained and educated young people are being confronted by the spectacle of unemployment through no fault of theirs. The ensuing and inevitable resentment which constitutes the spin-off contains the seeds of social discontent and, if left unbridled, will erode the structure of society as we know it.
The Government must demonstrate that they recognise this catastrophic situation and show clearly that they are prepared to pull out all the stops in combating this mounting problem. The Government have the resources and democratic authority to initiate the policy changes that would begin to redress this problem. But they must give a lead, of which there are as yet no visible signs. Our unemployment problem is one of the most serious of many countries. A huge proportion of our population is under 25 years of age. More far-reaching measures are needed to deal with it. It goes without saying that that amounts to a massive task. Perhaps because of developments in the country over the past 20 years we have now a more selfish community in which people in advantaged positions seek to make that advantage even stronger, a community in which those who have seek to have an ever diminishing cake divided so that they receive more and more. There are situations in which groups are prepared to halt essential services to try to extract from whatever source what they consider to be their legitimate demands.
I have endeavoured to look at this problem from a number of points of view. Firstly, we should gear our educational system for the rapid technological change and the new demands occurring in that field. Secondly, we should develop and expand our natural resources. Thirdly, we should revamp the building industry. Fourthly, combine Government-trade union-employer power in order to reach a consensus as to the method by which we can change the present situation in which more and more is given to fewer and fewer.
There must be a new industrial investment policy in which the emphasis is placed on people and not on machines and equipment and ensure also that risk-taking activities are encouraged by our tax code rather than discouraged as they are at present to the detriment of job opportunity. Fifthly, our goal should be to provide real employment rather than temporary employment schemes. Sixthly, we must consider a shorter working week, earlier retirement and, because of those considerations, a preparation for greater leisure in terms of the provision of facilities, tourism and matters of that sort. Lastly there are voluntary activities.
Our schools must be geared to the real world. The emphasis on technology rather than on the academic is still not sufficient and is too slow. Our schools and colleges need to be encouraged to develop an entrepreneurial spirit. We need to show vidoes and use every opportunity to get across to young students how successful projects are generated, particularly to emphasise where such were possible in small businesses emanating from small beginnings and small resources. The emphasis must be away from the present and traditional consideration of wanting to be something rather than wanting to do something. There are few vacancies in the medical, para-medical and other professions, such as teaching. But there is a vast range of imported products we could manufacture ourselves given the reorientation of traditionally educated beings. I should like to emphasise how it is possible to do something in that area. Close to me at home is a workshop for the mentally handicapped. There are 40 young people working in a variety of schemes in this sheltered workshop. Only two years after they started, they are able to supply products to local industries in Roscrea which formerly were imported. These products are made by people who are very disadvantaged but with the help of the local community and the health board we see how such groups can be helped. Those of us with good health can do much more in a more extensive way.
We have an educational structure in the technological area that is on a par with the best in the world. However, we do not seem to be able to capitalise on it and have the kind of inventiveness that the country so badly needs. An information data revolution is taking place. We need access to new inventions and developments. We have to reward risk-taking. Not all that is attempted will succeed but it is better to attempt and fail than to do nothing.
Neither our tax code nor our industrial policy reflects the attitude of a Government interested in grasping every worth-while possibility for job opportunities. About £400 million is available for private investment but only a small fraction of this finds its way into employment projects. Securities, gilts, insurance and finance companies are safer bets. It is up to the Government to create a climate for investment. They should ensure that tax incentives and other helps are diverted to meeting crucial, national needs. Is it not a crying shame that tax concessions are given to people who invest in areas where there is no question of job-creation while employment creating areas are not treated in the same way? There is a huge market in computers and electronics. With the co-operation of NIHE in Limerick, highly skilled personnel are exploiting the job market in this growing industry. However, we import software programmes which are written in Europe and which could be done here if we had sufficiently trained manpower to do the programmes.
Despite considerable growth in some sectors, agriculture has considerable scope for advancement. I referred previously to the scandal of food imports. If greater research and development on new projects were carried out, if there was greater downstream processing and if there was added value to existing products, there would be ample scope for increased foreign earnings, more jobs and a reduced deficit.
I welcome the pilot scheme with regard to food technology which is being awarded to the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. I hope that this unit, with the expertise that is in the industry, can be motivated to a far greater degree. In the depths of the last recession it was the agricultural arm that gave the first lift to the economy. Our land can and must do more. Its produce is worth more. We must sell it more aggressively on the European and world markets. We must extract the maximum gain for our country. In this difficult climate from the point of view of investment when competition for foreign investment is so keen, it behoves us to look at what we have at home and to ensure that we gain the maximum benefit from it.
Our forests are maturing at a phenomenal rate. Now we could reap the advantage of the foresight of those who pioneered this development many years ago but what is the reality? We are harvesting each year about one-third of this maturing crop and we are leaving the remainder to choke our forests. As a nation we spend about £350 million on timber imports excluding furniture but it is estimated that 86 per cent of imports could be manufactured or processed at home. The British import about 75 per cent of their timber requirements and the EEC import about 15 per cent.
In an area where we have a surplus product, in a market where we already have trade agreements and where massive imports are required we have failed to grasp the possibilities. Faced with this gilt-edged opportunity in terms of jobs and foreign earnings in respect of a native resource which is ever-renewing, we stagnate. I will never understand the attitude of the Department of Finance and the Department of Agriculture and Forestry with regard to this matter. It is not possible to divorce an economic policy from a jobs policy. Because of our young, growing population, these two areas have to be intertwined. In our dire economic situation it is not possible to ignore the potential of our resources, particularly when we pay huge sums for imports.
In the matter of Government contracts we have huge purchases each year. I know that a substantial amount of Government requirements are imported. There is much talk about the provision of jobs and the development of our natural resources but, at the same time, we continue to import vast quantities of commodities.
In the area of fisheries, European countries have ensured that for every job at sea they have five or six in the processing sector. The opposite is the position here: for every job at sea, we have only one job in the processing sector. The absence of a coherent common fisheries policy has frustrated some of our efforts. We must convert our renewing resources over which we have control to ensure that the maximum number of jobs are provided.
The Government have considerable funds at their disposal for youth employment projects. I ask the Minister of State not to allow this fund which was created by the 1 per cent levy to replace gradually the European Social Fund in respect of training. I ask him also to ensure that the Government do not continue to use the fund to replace existing Exchequer supports, thereby leaving only minimal resources available for necessary and worthwhile youth employment projects. There is some evidence that the Government are using the fund to ease the burden on the Exchequer. I regard this as virtually criminal. Levies are a notoriously unfair means of taxation. They do not take into account one's ability to pay. If there can be any justification for hard measures, it can only be that the moneys accruing to the State will be devoted exclusively to dealing with the youth unemployment problem.
I ask the Minister, in looking at the variety of schemes to be undertaken, both in training and in employment, not to come up with metropolitan temporary employment schemes only. There is merit in training and temporary employment in those situations where schemes of that nature are employed. Many of them have done a lot of good. Young people have been prepared and as a result have been able to go into gainful and remunerative employment. In my home town of Roscrea the local school teacher and a small committee, blending their ideas and with the co-operation of the youth employment scheme, provided very worthwhile temporary job opportunities in the reconstruction of Damer House and the development of a heritage centre. This development, together with giving employment, has aroused a wonderful interest in local history and culture and will afford, to a new generation, the opportunity to know and to understand, to a far greater degree than any school could give, local history in the widest possible context.
What I was getting at, when referring to the temporary nature of much of that work, was to ask the Minister to be more adventurous in his approach and to consider establishing youth industrial co-operatives. We have lying dormant in many parts of the country, factory bays, halls and other facilities which could be used for a variety of co-operatives, for the preparation, development and processing of small products. We have vast resources in terms of untapped brain power with no real encouragement for adventure or risk taking. I do not mind whether it is the preparation of a regional cheese or preserving lamb to reach the delicatessen, or whatever other local outlets there might be, so long as we consider worthwhile schemes where the initiative of individuals would be tapped. If we give some encouragement to investment of that kind, young people themselves will come up with other solutions.
None of us expects solutions overnight or dramatic changes but we want to see it tackled in a way in which young people will know that there is a real interest in the problem and that whatever the difficulties, the community as a whole, led by the Government which have the democratic power and authority, are approaching this in a constructive and fair way.
One has only to remember what was possible in relation to Bailey's Cream. An industry was about to close and people, pooling their resources and coming together, came up with an idea. I was proud as Minister of State to see at the Green Fair in Berlin the extent to which this product of only a few years old had penetrated the world market. I do not recall the thousands of cases that were sold in that week alone but it is indicative of what is possible when we have belief in ourselves and where we use the organs of the State and the facilities which are there to encourage people to find solutions for themselves. We have an historical and undue reliance on somebody else to do things for us and we must try to change that. Young people especially will respond when interest is shown.
We must promote the idea of reducing working time, early retirement and voluntary schemes which open up the possibility of spreading the available pool of jobs to the greatest number of people possible.
In order that these schemes should prosper, there will inevitably have to be a marked change of attitude on the part of trade unions, employers and the Government. Trade unions place greater emphasis on more money for fewer people. The Taoiseach stated that the recent wage agreement will cost between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs. Where is the leadership there? The problem is identified but there is no will to find the solution. The soaring tax bill and the glaring inequities in that system make the trade union problems more difficult but Government action would help. However, the obligation to look seriously at their policies and to work out a cohesive union policy rests with the trade union movement. They must recognise their responsibility and be assisted in every way in promoting a less greedy and less selfish, ever-demanding attitude from those of us who are lucky to have employment and sometimes gaining ground at the expense of those whose future employment rests in the balance.
Employers, too, have a vital role. Wealth and property ownership bring in their train a heavy responsibility to use these resources in every way that will facilitate maximum employment. The Government must look at the way they penalise both employee and employer with PRSI and other levies. Some consideration must be given to this area and a little will help. The Government have huge sums of money available to them through social welfare contributions and there must be scope for encouraging change here. The black economy has grown. We have estimates of what it is in some European countries but we do not know exactly its extent here although if one looks at the devastating spectacle of drug pushing and the dire consequences for so many of our young people, we can understand the aspect of this side of our economy. There seems to be a grudging admiration for people who evade the courts or their tax liability. The tendency to consider a person so engaged as some kind of a hero must end. I refer specifically to the drug scene because there is mounting frustration among our young people with so little opportunity for work. This leaves them easy prey to drug pushers.
The educational system, despite the changes over the last ten years, has not succeeded in redressing the disadvantages of many of the working class and poor people. They suffer more from this additional problem because of no job opportunities. By the end of this year one out of every two who traditionally worked in the building industry over the last couple of years will be unemployed. All the indications are that this most vital organ of our economy is still on the decline. Cement sales are down, investment is down and the queue of building workers, trained and untrained, grows longer. Our housing needs are immense and one has only to meet young couples at the weekend to know the misery that many families have to endure.
As well as public funds being necessary, we have to re-jig the incentives in investment policies to ensure that far more private investment is encouraged into this growth area. Can we, in all conscience, tell young people that they must wait until the world economy recovers before they have any hope of a job? Is this facing reality? Studies have shown that, even with a significant increase in economic growth, the present rate of unemployment could perhaps only be halved.
In America some researchers have come up with the fatalistic view that one-third of the children now growing up will never work, a further third will work full time until they reach 50 years of age and the remaining third will work for about two days per week. These prognostications may prove false but new technology is increasingly reducing the need for man effort. This scientific revolution is with us and it is there to stay. Is technology, without social advance, only bringing misery? Over 50 per cent of the jobs coming on stream in this scheme were not known 15 years ago. Today we do not know what the vast majority of job opportunities in the technological area will be by the end of this century. How do we manage this change? Will our educational system, which is only beginning to look like moving in the direction of providing a more flexible, adaptable and less conservative approach, cope with these problems? A still more radical approach is needed. Only by reaching to this potential will we have the kind of skilled personnel to match the ever-changing employment opportunities. We need to continue evaluation of the skills of our unemployed so that instead of dumping people on the unemployment dust heap we will be in a position to divert resources to meet their needs. Their skills and techniques must be harnessed. When will we face up to the demoralising, undignified social welfare code which paralyses people? Hundreds of millions are spent each year on dole and unemployment benefits. With a little topping up it could be diverted into very necessary and worthwhile community schemes. Ask any young person who stands in an unemployment queue what his wishes are? The system will always be necessary to cater for the needy, but let us open the door to incentives and work schemes.
When money was much scarcer than it is today progressive Governments saw the need to contain unemployment. They were prepared to undertake even marginal economic schemes for the sake of employment. The Coalition Government talk about productive employment. I would also if I were in a Utopian situation but we are not. In the meantime the best part of £700 million will be spent soaking the last dregs of initiative away from a huge percentage of our population.
We have to seek the ideas of everybody. Things have to be worked out. Surveys have to be carried out and preparations made for tackling the transitional period between unemployment and employment. Do we as a community have to be paid for everything we do? There are vast opportunities for voluntary endeavour and community co-operative work in the provision of amenities and so on. Do we value work without pay, the kind of tradition which formed part of our culture, neighbourliness, helping lonely elderly people? Am I naive even to introduce it into the debate? Does work without payment enhance society or are we getting so bound up in ourselves that there is no room for the community obligation?
I suggest that we have to make a greater effort to put all the fragmented pieces of the bureaucratic machine together, find what is needed and act immediately. There are too many organisations fighting for the top dog positions and some will have to give way to follow a more co-ordinated and less wasteful approach to finding a solution. My theme is that there is plenty of work but not sufficient jobs. There are so many people out of work and so much work to be done and the question is: how do we match the two? Is life about earning a living or spending a living?
I wish to second this motion on behalf of my party. It is not with any great pleasure I do so. As far back as 1978 we realised that half of our population were under 25 years of age. Many politicians readily seized the opportunity to slot that figure and those age groups of young people into many speeches which all parties made at that time without stopping to realise what it really meant. What it meant has been too plainly proved to all of us in public life since it was with this in mind that my party signed our names to the motion. Our attendance here this evening confirms the unhappy truth of what I have said.
Young people believe that politicians have very little understanding of their problems. Many of them feel that we have abandoned them. This is not true. Many steps have been taken by successive Governments to ease the problem of youth employment. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent in various schemes. I have reservations, which I am sure are shared by many of my colleagues, about these schemes. It is time we looked at some of them to see how they operate in practice. If we are spending millions of pounds of taxpayers money, and since all aspects of that money are being looked into so closely, we might take a look at these agencies also.
National Manpower operate a work experience programme. A young person is taken into a business and his or her wages are paid in return for work experience. Perhaps this young person will eventually get a full-time job. But, in the end, is this all only in theory? I have experience of dealing with some of the young people who have taken these six months work experience courses. The end result has sometimes been good. However, in practice there are some employers who abuse the system. Many young people involved in the system are being used as cheap labour. The money is provided by the Department of Labour for the scheme. The young people are let go after six months and replaced by other young people.
Do these young people really benefit from the scheme? I questioned the Minister for Labour who was also Minister in the previous Coalition Government — when he brought in the Youth Employment Agency Bill. In this atmosphere of doom and gloom some of the young people are a breath of fresh air. They do not see the bad position the country is in. They seem to think there may be a way out and that in some years ahead there may be a job. There are still dedicated young people with some of the old ideals. I was in contact with some of them recently in regard to the preparatory work and official opening of a new youth centre in Ennis. It was under the AnCo community youth training programme. It was a complete success because the right man was in charge of it from beginning to end. It was the renovation of an old national school. It was officially opened about two weeks ago by the Taoiseach. I might put on record that the Taoiseach did not give the money for it — it was given by Fianna Fáil — but he performed the official opening.
Father Seán Sexton was in charge of that project. He was close to the whole project from beginning to end. I would be worried about a project in another area if there was not the same commitment by a man like Father Sexton. In another constituency where an identical project was undertaken it did not work as well as the one in Clare because I understand there was not sufficient check. We have the right type of supervisors in AnCO. That might be something the Minister might talk about to his colleagues in the other Department.
The Minister for Labour spoke last week about the Cabinet task force on employment which is to bring a co-ordinated and integrated approach to the problem. Later in his speech he said AnCO will train 34,000 people in the current year. Presumably many of these will be for the building trade. There are no jobs in the building trade today. I hope the Minister is not pinning too much hope in that particular field. I would like to refer to an article in The Irish Times last week on Aer Lingus. It stated that job sharing is working successfully in Aer Lingus. Job sharing could increase the number of jobs in other areas.
There are a number of jobs that unemployed people do not hear of under the present manpower system. I would suggest that the Minister consider a system of walk-in centres where all the current vacancies would be on display. He will say that there are no vacancies, but maybe a teacher who cannot get an appointment might be very glad to get work in another field. The same would apply to a carpenter or any other category of worker. This would eliminate a great deal of bureaucracy and filling of forms, and there would be notification only if a vacancy occurred in the area of qualification stated on the form. Under the present system a teacher is notified only of a teacher vacancy. A small shop might be the ideal location for such a centre. Young people are discouraged by complicated procedure and faceless institutions and in this country — it is small enough — we should have a simple procedure on a personal basis without layers of bureaucracy. We are talking about youth unemployment.
I wonder what the young people think of our readiness to call in high-powered consultants — most of them foreign — to analyse our problems on youth unemployment. We are well able to do it here ourselves. We do not need any foreign consultants. It seems that a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country. I am worried about the number of young people who may never get jobs. All politicians must see a very serious problem here which is the responsibility of the Government and even I will give them a hand, if I can do so, to solve it.
I understand that funding of sport activities was reduced this year by £100,000. If that is correct it is the worst year possible to reduce the funding of sports activities. Young people may go out and get into trouble if they have no jobs and no activities to occupy their time. I would ask the Minister for Finance to return that £100,000 to the Minister of State at the Department of Education.
There is a new realism among young people. They can take the truth and they have a right to a clear, simple explanation of economic, social and human problems. They are not interested in this Government blaming manifestos or The Way Forward. They are not interested in us criticising the Government for not creating jobs.
Young people want to see us politicians working together. They are surprised at our quickness to see difficulties and our slowness to grasp opportunities. They are daring and they think we should adopt the same attitude. The youth of today might well respond to a genuine effort on our part to help them. It has been said that tough minds and tender hearts get results.
It is a pity that on something as important as this our contributions are confined to 15 minutes. In dealing with the nation's problems, we should give priority to youth unemployment.
I welcome the Minister to the House and I congratulate him on his efforts to date in the short time that he is in that Ministry and the work that he has achieved in that time. I am glad of the opportunity to point out that this Government have a commitment to youth. In 1981 while temporarily out of office our work in that regard was put in abeyance but we are glad that at the end of the next four years we will see a remedy to this problem that preoccupies all our minds, not only as politicians but also in many instances as parents, of the future for our young and growing population.
Youth unemployment is the most important and pressing problem. This Government recognise that we must face up to this challenge. Commentators on the question have said that this growing population will accept unemployment on a temporary basis but they cannot continue to live in hope without some sort of reaction, and I hope that in the next four years the fears that may be latent within the young population can be abated and that worth-while and constructive opportunities for employment can be provided. It was this Government who first proposed a new, radical approach to the question of youth unemployment when they legislated for the creation of the Youth Employment Agency in 1981 which was inaugurated in March 1982. It was an attempt to deal with a problem which had been identified previously. Senator Honan said that many foreign consultants had been employed in the past but I should like to tell her that as far back as 1980 a report on youth unemployment was published by the Manpower Consultative Committee. Its findings were very rewarding. Nobody can quibble because Manpower is an Irish agency. Its work in finding employment for young people has been recognised.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I did not say that Manpower brought in foreign consultants.
The Senator said that all research into unemployment was done by foreign consultants. What I said was that as far back as 1980 Manpower published the first worth-while report on youth unemployment. One of the important findings of that report was that most of the disadvantaged people did not come in contact with any official employment agency. We have no idea of the number of people involved, their skills or capabilities. They were included in the unemployment registers but we had no idea of their needs. The Youth Employment Agency regarded such people as priority cases for places in future training such as AnCO work experience programmes.
Our population is growing faster than any other European country and our working population is increasing at twice the rate of any other European country. We are faced with a problem because we have no industrial base in which to absorb this population. The old safety valves of the civil service and emigration are gone. We must acknowledge the fact that 48 per cent of the population are under the age of 25. The number of school leavers has increased from 50,000 in 1971 to 70,000 this year. The Government must provide jobs at an increasing rate.
Some people suggest that we should look to emigration again. I and the Government totally reject that as a remedy for our present situation. The future of the country lies in our youth. If young people emigrate not only do we lose them but we also lose their skills. The money we spent on educating and training them goes to benefit some other country. We must employ our young people in our own country.
Like other countries suffering from recession, our unemployment has increased sharply. Young people are the most vulnerable. The rate of young unemployed far exceeds that of adult unemployed. There are more people looking for work than there are jobs and this is most demoralising.
The Government are facing the challenge but they cannot tackle the problem in isolation. The resources available to the Government must be channelled into paying back foreign borrowings which were incurred over the years. Many of our present misfortunes must be placed at the feet of the Opposition. It is reckoned that most of the money received from the PAYE sector is used to repay the interest on foreign borrowings. It is a pity that this money must leave the country when we could use it to create jobs for our young unemployed.
Much abuse was made of the money which was borrowed in that it was not used for productive purposes or to create employment. With the establishment of the Employment Task Force and the National Planning Board the Government are initiating employment generating prospects. The 1 per cent levy which is used to finance the Youth Employment Agency yielded £38 million in 1982 and £77 million in the current year. This will go some way towards creating employment for young people.
Many youth employment schemes will be initiated in the coming year. It is hoped to increase the number employed from 32,000 in 1982 to 45,000 in the coming year. In many cases the employment is not continuous but it gives those young people an opportunity to gain work experience.
Many people mentioned agriculture, fishing and forestry as areas which could provide job opportunities. Here, too, we are faced with great difficulties such as surpluses of food. As a result of the recession we find ourselves in markets oversupplied with many of the commodities which are our basic selling commodities. It is up to the National Planning Board and the task force to seek out new opportunities in those sectors. New products, new scientific measures of producing them and value added to the processes will have to be found if we are to use these basic raw materials as an opportunity to create greater employment.
The Senator has two minutes left.
Very recently at the meeting in Stuttgart the Taoiseach and many of our Ministers who represented us there won for Ireland a very important worth-while scheme whereby not only has our problem been recognised but we are now listed among one of six super-priority regions within the EEC for which additional funds will be made available for the creation of employment. Two very important things have come from that. One is that 40 per cent of the Social Fund has been allocated to the creation of employment. Secondly, Ireland is included as one of those super designated areas within the EEC and must benefit largely by that. The important aspect is that 75 per cent of the Social Fund will be allocated to the sector with which we are dealing, the unemployed under the age of 25 years. It is important, therefore, that we can expect in the near future a further involvement in training schemes, in youth employment and temporary employment schemes. Solving the problem of the unemployed cannot be done by the Government alone. It needs the co-operation of all people involved in youth administration, youth education and the voluntary youth organisations. They have a very valuable part to play at local level.
I welcome the Minister for Education's intention to reorganise the curriculum whereby people will in future be educated for work rather than having the present educational structure under which, when young people do the leaving certificate, they have no basis on which to seek valuable future employment.
I would like to support the call for action on this matter. It is undoubtedly the most pressing problem that faces the country at present. If it is not solved it will certainly lead to far-reaching consequences, economically and socially. In saying that, it would be quite impossible to exaggerate the consequences which will follow if this question of unemployment in general and of young people in particular is not tackled and solved. In urging the Government to act in this respect I am not suggesting that there is any easy solution and certainly not that I can offer to them a comprehensive solution to the problem. However, it must be realised that I have not been given the task of solving this problem whereas the Government have. That extends to the Members of Fine Gael and the Labour Party in this House who combine to form the present Government.
I would urge them, in speaking on this measure, not to be talking to somebody away out there but to be thinking in terms of the fact that they form the Government of the present time and should be saying what should be done, not merely advocating it to somebody for whom they would appear to have no responsibility. No Government which fails to solve this problem could hope to remain in office for very long. No Government which fails to solve the problem would deserve to remain in office for very long. It is the acid test by which any Government can be judged while this problem still exists.
Unfortunately, the views of most economists at present — and most of the statistics which they produce appear to bear this out — give little hope for an improvement of the situation in the immediate future. The report carried in today's papers from the OECD, while predicting a lifting of the recession over the next year and that there would be improved production, improved sales, improved international trade, still predicts rising unemployment over the next year or two. One of the rather depressing things about the commentary from the Confederation of Irish Industry, which also came out in the last day or two, is that it shows that the capacity utilisation in our average factory at present is only something like 60 per cent. That means that even with an improvement in the economic situation the average factory can more than improve, increase its output by more than 50 per cent without having to take on any extra staff. That shows the problem which exists at the present time.
Most indications suggest that unless some very far-reaching solution is found unemployment will persist for the next few years. In fact, the OECD report says that in Europe unemployment will move up from 16 million to 20 million. That will give an unemployment rate of something like 12 per cent for the whole of Europe. In the case of Ireland they are even more pessimistic. They say that over the next year our unemployment rate will rise from 13½ per cent to 15¾ per cent and that we will have 220,000 unemployed in 1984 as compared with the present figure of something around 189,000. That is their prediction. Whereas it is something which has to be considered and which is very pessimistic, we do not have to take it for granted that it is going to be exactly right. It is up to the Governments of this and every country to show the economists that they are not entirely powerless, that they can do something in this matter, that the position is not totally hopeless. Certainly, that is something which our Government must endeavour to do.
One of the reasons why the unemployment situation appears to be so bad is that many of the firms which have survived the recession of the last year or so have done so by the introduction of capital intensive methods, by cutting down on employees, by introducing labour-saving methods. The result of that is that when the recession lifts and when these firms which have introduced these methods go back into full production again, they will be doing so with much lower staff numbers than they had before the recession. That, of course, is a reason why instead of full or increased employment following increased production and increased international trade, in fact there will not be that relation between the two.
The State of industrial relations in this country has undoubtedly contributed to our unemployment problem. There is no doubt a continuous succession of strikes, and unofficial strikes in particular, and the continuous hassle in industrial relations have caused a good deal of difficulty to firms and resulted in an inordinate amount of time being taken up by management in trying to deal with these problems, time which should have been devoted to ensuring that management was more efficient, and that more effective methods were adopted in the ordinary running of the factory.
Another matter which has contributed to the lack of a resurgence in employment is the legislation introduced a few years ago restricting the dismissal of employees. This has proved to be counter productive because many industrialists are now slow to take on staff for a new venture knowing that if the venture is not successful it will be difficult if not impossible to dismiss the staff who are no longer required. This seemed to be a good idea but in practice it has done more harm than good in relation to the problem of unemployment.
Assuming the lifting of the recession and that the predictions of the OECD and the other economists are correct, and that we will have improved international trade, and an improvement in industrial relations to enable us to compare more favourably with other countries, we are still likely to have a completely unacceptable level of unemployment, particularly amongst young people.
There are only two bright spots in relation to this problem which can be seen at the moment. One is in the area of providing services for countries in the Middle East, Third World countries. Instead of concentrating on the export of goods as we did in the past, we should be giving a great deal more attention to the possibility of providing services, of availing of the need in these countries for administration. This idea has been adopted very successfully by such firms as the ESB, Aer Lingus, building firms and several other types of firms to fill a need for those services. By doing so they provide very good employment for people here. If goods are required in relation to the work they are doing in these countries they can ensure that at least Irish firms are given an opportunity to tender and have a chance to provide the goods, thereby increasing our exports as well as providing services.
The other area which gives some hope in the future is not as acceptable a solution as the first one I have mentioned. It is a fact that in Germany in particular, and in one or two other countries in Europe, by the end of the decade they will have a problem not of unemployment but of an inadequate work force. They will have to look to other countries for help in this question of a work force and they will either be providing work in Germany, or whatever countries are concerned, or alternatively, which would be much more acceptable, they will have to set up some of their factories in countries where a work force is available. This is an opportunity which Ireland can avail of, and an opportunity which can be of some help in solving the unemployment problem in a few years' time. These are two areas in which there is some hope, over and above the ordinary possibilities of which we must never lose sight, providing more jobs in the traditional way.
Apart from that the Government must make a radical reappraisal of the problem of unemployment. They must introduce and devise new methods of providing occupational activity of one kind or another which would possibly be something half way between the normal kind of job we have at the moment and the situation where we have so many people on the dole. We should always remember that the problem is not that there is no work to be done. There is plenty of work to be done. The problem is that we cannot afford to pay people to do the work which is crying out to be done. There is an immense amount of work to be done on infrastructures, on building, education, social welfare and health. The problem is that we cannot pay for this work to be done in the ordinary way. Everybody who is concerned about this problem must have a new look at the whole question of providing occupations for people in a way which will give them some recompense.
The Government should explore the possibility of getting some of the work done which requires to be done to some extent on a voluntary basis but subsidised by the State. This would provide a temporary occupation for people who cannot get work in the ordinary way. It would give them some satisfaction, some self-respect and an income in excess of the dole but possibly not as much as they would get in full employment which they would hope to get eventually. The Government must explore all possibilities outside the traditional methods of providing employment. They must cut through the present conventions, the precedents, the inhibitions, the whole idea that there is only one way to provide work and that is by building more factories or in agriculture. If there is to be any hope of solving the almost impossible problem which unemployment poses, the Government must look at the matter in a new way. It is a basic requirement for the economy and the social structures that the problem of unemployment be solved. Something radical must be done. I do not think we can survive as a State unless something radical is done.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House and I compliment him on the auspicious start he has made as Minister. The issue addressed in this motion is of the utmost importance for our future and for the development of our country. As we are so often told our people are our nation's most valuable resource. Young people in particular will make up the Ireland of tomorrow.
The scourge of unemployment is not a local issue. It is not a national issue. It is a trans-national problem which affects the whole developed world. Nor is it a problem which affects young people alone. All ages and all groupings can have their lives turned upside down by being thrown out of work or being unable to find employment. There are those who would argue that, of all age groups, young people are best able to cope with the catastrophe of unemployment, being more resilient and adaptable than their older work mates. However, I would argue that to hold out no hope of employment for our young people is to tell them that they are of no value, that they do not have a contribution to make to the wellbeing and prosperity of their country. They must be allowed to make their contribution and they must be seen to be held in high esteem and high value.
To put the dire situation in perspective, I should like to refer to the disastrous unemployment situation in Wexford. In March this year 2,258 people were registered as unemployed in Wexford town, a 140 per cent increase since 1979 and representing 21.2 per cent of the work force. Similarly in Enniscorthy 1,565 people are unemployed, a 136.7 per cent increase in four years and a scandalously high 16 per cent unemployment rate. In New Ross there are 1,224 unemployed, a staggering 188.7 per cent increase since 1979, while in Gorey there are 1,014 people unemployed, a 171.1 per cent increase in four years representing 16.1 per cent of the work force. A significant number of those are people who are aged under 25. I am anxious to avail of this opportunity to highlight the situation in Wexford to the Minister. While I recognise that the country in general has problems I put it to the Minister that the situation in Wexford is of crisis proportions. To underline the point further I should like to tell the Minister that only 5.1 per cent of our working population in Wexford are engaged in manufacturing industry and that compares with 10.9 per cent for Carlow, 10.4 per cent for Water-ford and 7.3 per cent for Kilkenny, our three neighbouring counties. Those figures, together with the fact that no major manufacturing industry has been sited in Wexford in recent years, underline the neglect of that county by successive Governments, but I am confident that the Coalition Government will rectify that neglect.
I welcome the bringing to fruition of the Youth Employment Agency as a mechanism by which the problem can at last be tackled. I understand that in recent times the Minister sanctioned additional staff for the agency to identify areas where the considerable sums of money available to the agency from the Exchequer can be pumped into creating sustainable and worth-while jobs. The agency can be of immense value in focusing in on the areas where a fruitful investment can be made and, equally important, in signalling clearly to our young people that the Government and the nation value them highly.
Those fortunate enough to be in employment in my view quite happily contribute the 1 per cent levy if it can be seen that the moneys thus collected are well managed and productively invested. I look forward also to the establishment of the National Development Corporation as a dynamic State agency for investment in job creation. It is clear that private enterprise alone cannot solve our unemployment problem. Millions of pounds of public money have been used to attract and encourage foreign enterprise to the State. Too often we found that when the market got tough their commitment to the country and our people was very subordinate to the commitment to profit. We have all too many examples in every constituency and county of those who when the going got tough saw fit to cut and run. It is therefore imperative that programmes for attracting foreign investment are matched by direct State involvement in job creation.
It has become fashionable of late in certain quarters to attack State and semi-State industry. Too often we, as politicians, have lumbered semi-State companies with a myriad of social responsibilities, interfered constantly with their day-to-day working and then expressed surprise when at the end of the day they did not make a profit. Elected members have a responsibility to be balanced and fair in their comments and when looking at semi-State companies to use the same criteria they use to judge and evaluate the work of private companies.
The forecasts from every source and every nation are characterised by one factor, recurring gloom. No country has found a solution to the nightmare of unemployment and increasingly we are told that the best we can hope for in the immediate and long-term future is a slowing down of the rate of increase rather than an end to the problem. The situation demands that we look in a new and radical way at the concept of unemployment. We must not debase the unemployed by making this a party political issue, a political football in which each party beat their chest in majesty by saying how much they, their Departments and their Ministers have done and decry the Opposition for not doing all they should have done. I appeal to the Opposition and Members on the Government side to regard the issue as being of such importance that it transcends the normal political divide and to acknowledge the fact that we all must share the responsibility, it rests on all our shoulders, and only in collective action can we hope to remedy it.
We will have to break a few traditionalist and outdated moulds. No longer can we view a job as being the factor which defines our work, our social position or as being the skeleton on which we hang our lives. Unemployment must not be regarded as a social disease and the unemployed victims to be avoided and pitied. We must look afresh at the possibility of work-sharing, a fact alluded to by Opposition speakers, and areas such as early retirement and the creation by the State of non-commercial jobs whereby those who undertake socially useful and important work in the environment, working with children, the disadvantaged, unattached youth, can have their work recognised and be paid a social wage. We must look afresh at leisure activities and the concept of open-ended education, cradle to grave education, allowing easy access at different stages of one's life. We must look at the facilities the State provide for people to occupy their leisure time, to get away from the idea that a nine to five job is the only way one's day can be usefully occupied.
The age of the micro-processor has dawned and with it comes, depending on one's viewpoint, either a plague or a golden opportunity. In coming years the jobs of many people will be replaced by machines. The work undertaken by a considerable proportion of the work force at present can be more efficiently done in the future by robots or mechanised machinery. Depending on how we come to terms with that fact, the result will either be a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the few or, alternatively, the freeing of people to develop their own talents, indeed their own humanity. From the labour point of view, we must approach the opportunities of mechanisation not as a plague to be avoided or as a disaster zone, but as an opportunity for freeing people to be more human.
I look forward to hearing the Minister outline what plans the Government have for employment, and particularly youth employment, and to impress upon him the importance of his Ministry at this crucial stage of our nation's development.
I do not have to remind Members that one of the primary duties of society is to create employment opportunities for the greatest number of our citizens. Work is one of man's most important means of self-fulfilment. The opportunity and freedom of work are conditions of his dignity as a person. To a man work is that independence and ability to provide for his own, without which he can scarcely retain his self-respect. In our kind of society productive work and the independence which goes with it are important conditions for retaining the respect of the community. Those people who remain without work for long periods inevitably become "marginalised" in society. That situation is a recipe for vandalism and other evils in society. It undermines one's self-esteem and tends to breed resentment against society.
For a man not to be able to find work means that society is saying they have no need of him. This country is saying that to many thousands of older people who have served the community very well and whose employment has ceased with little hope of retraining them. We are saying to thousands of young boys and girls to whom we have given a good education that we do not want them either. We are letting them down. This situation is a very serious reflection on society and should weigh very heavily on our conscience.
I have no doubt that the biggest single problem parents see for their children is a job at the end of their school days. They are not unduly worried about education, social welfare or other areas; their biggest single worry is whether their children will have worthwhile jobs. It must be admitted that the last budget did very little, if anything, for the job creation situation. Government taxation now and in the past has been a deterrent to job creation. Clearly PRSI, unfair dismissals, the Employment Equality Act, are all areas which are helping to keep young people out of jobs. When I was at leaving certificate stage in the late fifties there were many areas where I could look for a job — CIE, Aer Lingus, semi-State bodies, insurance companies and the building industry. The tourist industry was booming. Now unfortunately that is not the case because of the high hotel and petrol prices.
The first aim of the national policy of any Government should be the provision of jobs for the greatest possible number of people. Senator Burke said the Government recognised that fact; he could have fooled me. I do not wish to make a political point but during the last eight or ten months I have heard a great deal about crusades, divorce, contraception and issues that are important in their own way, but this is the most vital issue facing the people. Clearly job creation for our youth is the crisis area which should be tackled as a first priority by this Government. Let me repeat, I am not saying those other areas are not important in their own way, but this is the most important issue of the day.
This problem should be accepted as a national challenge and everybody should make a commitment to it. It will not be easy to solve this problem. No easy promises should be bandied about. Unless sacrifices and restraints are seen by all and are voluntarily accepted by all, especially the better off, there is no way the jobs needed will be created.
A real injustice will be done to our people by politicians or other leaders of opinion who suggest that our economic problems can be solved without more work, restraint, saving and sacrifices. A real injustice will be done to all by group leaders who claim that the necessary sacrifices should be made by others, but not by their followers. Political promises, economic forecasts, group demands or refusals raise important questions of justice. We have to tell the people it is their living standards and their families which are at stake.
We must compliment the IDA for the great work they are doing, but unfortunately as they are creating jobs in industry others are being lost by cutbacks and closures. This is a regrettable situation. In a recent article in one of our newspapers I read that job losses are likely to remain high in industry and that policy makers will have to look elsewhere to find employment for job seekers. That type of problem will continue, regrettably, and the figure mentioned by Senator E. Ryan unfortunately will increase. We have become uncompetitive. This is another reason jobs are being lost. We have new technology, which is playing a massive role but is doing nothing for job creation.
As has been mentioned by previous speakers, the valve of emigration is no longer with us. One could argue that the situation has worsened. I was told recently that as many as 100,000 people have come from the North of Ireland since 1969. They are welcome but they have added to the problem. I have given reasons why jobs are scarce and will continue to be scarce.
Much has been said about work experience programmes. Much as they are to be praised, I believe our people realise that training is vital if there is a job at the end of the day but there is no point in training somebody if there is not a job for him. I have seen this happen to boys and girls who were trained under various schemes. The Youth Employment Agency has been mentioned very often in the course of this debate. I believe that not just 1 per cent or 2 per cent but 5 per cent would be contributed by our people by way of youth employment levy if, at the end of the day — rather than have some type of training situation obtain — there were permanent, worthwhile jobs. That is not what is happening at present. The emphasis must be on the creation of jobs as distinct from the provision of training programmes at present being undertaken by many agencies.
Our expanding population presents a huge challenge to all of us. The creation of jobs for our people will be one of the great tests of national spirit and of patriotic endeavour in this generation. In face of this challenge a new definition of patriotism must be created, a new understanding of what it means to love and serve Ireland must be formed. The community as a whole needs to be much better informed about the facts. I accept that the strain on the nation's basic services of education and health will be extremely severe in the years immediately ahead. But I believe that the risks of social unrest which would follow a failure to face this challenge would be very grave indeed. All those competent to judge have warned that, if recent unemployment rates are allowed to grow — and I believe they will grow or continue at their present rate to something less than 200,000 — then the dangers of grave social and socio-political tensions in this country will be very great.
The matter is too serious for political point-scoring. All of us in this Chamber must bring to this debate genuine courage, objectivity, constructive criticism, if necessary. The truth sometimes may be unpopular but concealment or evasion of the truth might be fatal. Many of us have mentioned reasons for there being improvements implemented on the job scene. I am not an expert in this field but I accept that job-sharing must have an input of some kind. It has been suggested that overtime might be replaced by some kind of flexible, casual staffing arrangement. A shorter working week has been suggested. I believe that better tax concessions would improve the position. But, above all, we must become competitive.
In this and the other House we have all-party committees on important matters such as marital breakdown, divorce, building land and so on. I am not saying we should not have them but why not have an all-party committee on the most important issue of all, that of job creation? Why not have an expert team of specialists from all sections of the civil service — we are paying civil servants very high money; I am not saying they do not deserve it — who would sit down with the politicians and iron out this problem once and for all in order to provide our young people with new jobs and a better way of life? Men with an already adequate salary or pension, women with comfortable livelihoods, with no economic need to work in present circumstances, have some obligation not to seek to hold onto their jobs at the expense of others, especially at the expense of our younger people who cannot find work. The single most important problem confronting this country at present is the shortage of jobs. Let there be no doubt about that. To have good opportunities for all those seeking work would be the biggest single social reform that could be achieved. It would remove a good deal of poverty, relieve a great deal of personal frustration, reduce social tensions and create a climate of optimism which in itself would contribute to a healthier society.
Before calling on the next speaker I notice a number of people offering. Time is against it. I would ask them, if they could, to shorten their speeches——
If I might make a point of order at this stage, on the last item we facilitated the taking of an item by allowing it to run over the time. In view of the fact that there are a limited number of people offering to speak, I suggest that we might operate the same principle in relation to this item on our agenda, in other words that we would extend——
We did not use the time from the last item. We are giving the full three hours to this debate.
On a point of order, my suggestion is that there are not that many people offering to speak. In view of the topic I would suggest that we facilitate them by——
The difference between the two times is that one is tied up in the little red book, the Standing Orders, and the other was an agreement reached on the Order of Business this morning. We are now wasting time.
May I suggest that Senator Higgins may have a point. I had cause this afternoon to read the little red book and it does mention the possibility of extending the number of hours for a motion. I cannot remember whether it is in the power of the Chair or of the Seanad. I believe in the little red book there may be some reference to that. Certainly I had good reason to look at the book this afternoon.
May I say, a Chathaoirligh, that for our part we would be happy to facilitate any Senator who wants to contribute.
That does not help me one bit.
We have no wish to make your seat any hotter than it is this evening, a Chathaoirligh. But in view of the importance we attach to this motion, and is attached to it by Members on both sides, if there is any leeway in the Standing Orders, we would ask you to err on the side of charity.
Leave it at what we have said. I might ask the people offering again to shorten their contributions, if possible, and we will review the situation when we come to closing time.
We ladies have not a name for being brief but sometimes we are more brief than our male counterparts. Ba mhaith liom labhairt i nGaelige ach in omós don Seanadóir Robb anseo ar mo thaobh nach dtuigeann an teanga go fóill, deir sé liom, dúirt mé leis go labharfainn i mBéarla.
This is the single, greatest problem confronting this country, that of youth unemployment, and it is a challenge to all of us. There is in Ireland a growth of young people much more than in the rest of Europe. We hear people talk nowadays of what kind of country we will have here in the future and about the future Ireland. Of course when they talk in that vein they are referring mainly to the national question. The kind of country the next generation will inherit will depend as much on what we do to tackle the problem of youth unemployment as it will on what we do to tackle the national question.
It is clear from the contributions in this House today that there is an awareness of the problem that must be tackled right across the board, across the political parties. I have listened to all of the speeches and there is no doubt about that. I am pleased to note that there is in this part of the country the Youth Employment Agency which was set up to tackle the problem of youth unemployment. What is now required is an equivalent commitment across the board, first of all a commitment by Government who are in a position to do something about it and an equal commitment on the part of the Opposition to constructive criticism and constructive, helpful suggestions and ideas in the tackling of this very serious problem.
Might I say a word or two about the young people of today? I feel they come in for a lot of unfair criticism. From my experience of working with young people I find they are far more idealistic, more caring and more concerned about the under-privileged than were my generation when I was young. They are quick to recognise hypocrisy in all areas of politics. I should like to pay tribute to young people who I think are much maligned by society today. If politicians fail to take seriously the grave problems that face young people in seeking employment, disillusionment will develop very rapidly. They will experience frustration and the problems that flow from that.
The urgency of the problem cannot be over-emphasised. I urge all concerned, the trade unions, employers, Government and Opposition, to get together and make a constructive effort to tackle the problem. In particular trade unions, with the employers, must play their role. Like the Northern Ireland problem, there is not an easy solution. The days are gone when we could export our problems. Because of the seriousness of the problem it will require all parties to transcend the normal political divisions. We must give the young people a stake in the country. If people do not have this they will not be very enthusiastic about the type of society we have.
I realise this is a problem that affects the rest of Europe, it is not just an Irish problem although it may be a little worse here. While we consult with colleagues in Europe about the youth unemployment problem, perhaps we do not have enough consultation with the people who deal with that problem in the North of Ireland. I suggest that some way be found of pooling ideas in this part of the island and in the North in an effort to tackle the problem. Unfortunately we have not a Youth Employment Agency. Unfortunately, also, we operate under an iron lady whose concern for youth is not clear. Neither is her concern clear with regard to unemployment.
Perhaps we could learn from the mistakes that have been made. A number of mistakes have been made in the North with regard to youth employment. Senator Honan referred to training schemes. There is a danger of short-term advantage being sought by setting up training schemes but with no work at the end. Taking people off the unemployment queue for six months, training them for jobs that do not exist and then throwing them back on the scrap-heap of unemployment doubles their sense of frustration.
There is need for a planned approach. There is also need for a new attitude towards work and the value of work. Here there is a major role for education. For too long the problem in this country has been trying to fit square pegs into round holes. In my generation it was thought a university degree was the beginning and end of everything. What we require is equality of opportunity for all and thus allow everyone to fit into the mould that is best suited to him or her. All work should be given equal value. We should not have a snobbish outlook that regards some work as more important to society than other work.
There are a number of pitfalls to be avoided in seeking a way out of our dilemma of youth unemployment. I am sorry Senator Fallon has left the House. He talked about women who are comfortably off. A few people recently have said married women should give up their jobs. Most married women who are working do so because they have to supplement the family income. I suggest that the men who have two or more jobs should give up their extra work and keep just one job. We must not think of the sacrifices the other person has to make but of the sacrifices we must make. For instance, we could have schemes to encourage early retirement. That would allow jobs to be created for young people. Women could be encouraged to go out of the work force for a few years to cope with their families. Many women would like to do that but they know they would lose benefits and pension rights. That area should be considered. Women could be given incentives to stay out of the work force for a few years if they wished to do so but it should not cost them anything in pension rights.
I wish to turn to the Northern experience and to talk about the real effect of unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular. In Northern Ireland we have a young generation who have no hope of work and whose parents have never worked. When people talk about unemployment and youth unemployment here, it looks like a rose garden to us from Northern Ireland. Many young people there have no hope of employment: they are in areas such as west Belfast, Derry and in the eastern part of Northern Ireland. They are doubly frustrated and doubly alienated because they have no work, no hope of work and their families have never worked. The result has been a total alienation, a total lack of identity with the institutions of government. This sense exists already for other reasons but it is aggravated by the unemployment situation. That alienation allows for exploitation of two kinds. First, it allows for young people who are desperate to find employment to be exploited by employers who pay them less than a living wage. They are so glad to get any work they will work for buttons. That does not solve the problem but leads to further frustration later on.
The worst exploitation of all is the exploitation by the para-militaries of young people who have lost hope in society, who do not identify with it and who are completely alienated. In their frustration they are led to believe that the answer to all their problems lies with the para-militaries who have been quick to exploit that situation. I am talking about people whose concern for youth unemployment can be gauged by the fact that in the past ten years the damage caused by these same para-militaries to industrial and commercial property has cost £428 million in Northern Ireland. One can imagine the job losses that resulted from that. They have also been responsible for the murder of industrialists and that, in turn, has discouraged investment. They are the people to whom the young, in their frustration, are turning for help. I suggest that is an indictment of all the politicians concerned with providing employment for young people.
I envy Members of the Seanad and the Members of the other House. They have the power to change things, to make the sacrifices and to give the commitment. In Northern Ireland we have not that power. I know it will not be an easy job. I am not an economist but I appeal to all concerned, the Government, Opposition, the trade unions and the employers, to come together on this the most crucial issue facing our people, namely, the problem of youth unemployment. They should make a constructive attempt to deal with it before the alienation we have seen with its tragic results in Northern Ireland sets in here which will leave the people here with a more difficult problem to tackle.
In deference to the wishes of the Chair I shall be very brief. With regard to married women giving up their jobs, I wish to say at the outset, in case I forget it later that I would, under no circumstances, subscribe to that idea. If married women feel they have a contribution to make, professionally or otherwise, they should be given that opportunity and I see no reason to discriminate against them simply because they are married. Those of us with young children and, indeed, with children not so young, are very concerned about this problem. One of the most serious and urgent problems facing us is that there are in the region of 200,000 unemployed. A few years ago the prospect of having 100,000 unemployed was considered out of the question. As I have said before in this House I believe that employment as we have known it will never return. We will have to consider shorter working hours and possibly earlier retirements.
In the existing system there are many anomalies. One of them is in regard to someone who is signing for social welfare benefits. The position was that if an individual was employed for a short period there would be a break in the claim. Bureaucracy was involved which would involve clerical procedure and delays in payment with the result that either the unemployed individual did not work for the short period or he worked and did not notify the social welfare office. He was, therefore, encouraged to be dishonest. The mistake was in the system and no fault could be found with the individuals concerned.
I met a young county councillor during my canvassing. He had a wife who is a nurse who had applied unsuccessfully for different jobs over a number of years. She decided while drawing social welfare insurance to do a course in typing to qualify as a secretary in order to get a job. However, she was not allowed to do the course while drawing unemployment benefit. That was a crazy situation. By staying at home and doing nothing she was entitled to draw social welfare benefit but by trying to do something constructive that would result in getting work later on she was debarred from getting social welfare benefits.
It is a sad situation when our youth are being educated with no prospects of getting employment. Applications for some positions run into thousands. A vacancy for a position of clerical officer with a local authority was advertised recently. There was a young man in the position in a temporary capacity and when the post was advertised to be filled permanently this young man applied. There were over 300 applications, three of which were from well-qualified graduates and the result was that this man who had been doing the work so well was not even called for an interview. The ultimate will be when applicants are required to have doctorates to get jobs sweeping the roads.
This situation spells nothing but despair. A radical approach is needed. Nearly 100 per cent of the people capable of working wish to do so. They do not want hand-outs. We will have to abandon the present system like a sinking raft and channel the finances through productive schemes such as housing, roads, forestry, turf, drainage, industrial projects, assisting farmers, etc. This could be done without competing with private enterprise. It would be possible to give proper remuneration and satisfactory conditions. Let us take forestry, for example. If, 20 years ago, people who were on the dole were given the opportunity to work on a scheme for re-afforestation of an area of land they could have been paid well, would have had decent conditions and we would now have a viable industry giving employment. That would have been a good investment at no cost to the State. If we were to give special grants to people to build their own houses we would get a meaningful contribution. These houses might not necessarily be in competition with others built commercially because the same conditions could apply to them as for vacancies, for example, in the civil service where people who would have got grants for training as teachers would not be considered. Those with educational qualifications could be given grants for various projects and they would have something to look forward to. The whole focus should be on hope. It is not enough to tinker with the existing structures. It is very important to train for leisure.
In the National Youth Council of Ireland publication which we have all received it is pointed out that effective policies are of the greatest urgency with an average growth rate for the adult population of 1.3 per cent and with over 70,000 young people unemployed. The basis of the solution lies in the pursuit of economic and social policies geared toward job creation. I want to repeat that over the years, the objective was to reduce labour or, in fact, in many cases to eliminate it if possible. There were firms who carried out surveys for that purpose. This was a short-sighted and parochial approach as far as fiscal policy was concerned. When I started work as an area clerk for Meath County Council, we had quarries and pits all over the county. These gave employment and the unit charges were based on the costs. For example, the costs were worked out at so much per cubic yard. A private company were set up at that time and were in a position to charge less per cubic yard than the local authority. For example, where about a cubic yard of chippings would cost the county council £1 to produce, this firm could supply one cubic yard at half that cost. The result was that all these schemes were terminated and jobs were gone forever, replaced by sophisticated machines. In a limited sense of grants for the various works this was progress. More work could be done for a specific grant or the same work could be done at a lesser cost. But in the global sense of lost jobs and the social welfare payments that inevitably followed, the situation was quite definitely on the minus side.
I am not suggesting that we do not take advantage of modern technology and science. If we were prepared to go back to the spade and shovel, the horse and plough, the mug of buttermilk and the pretty maid milking her cow there would be no problem. However, there is no turning back. We need a new definition of work and a radical plan. Money should work to generate work. I agree with the Senators who have said that this is not a party political problem. This is a problem we all want to share.
At this stage I want to repeat my point of order. We have three or four Senators who are anxious to speak on this motion and I can detect in the House a consensus to facilitate these speakers. Many people who have been in the House have offered now. I propose that under Standing Order 41 (a) which says that, unless the Seanad so otherwise orders, three hours be the time given to a motion, the Seanad should amend its Order of Business now to extend the time of sitting from 8.30 to 9.30. I so move.
I would like to second that.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Before the Opposition speak I understand that the Cathaoirleach has already talked about this and has reservations.
If I might help in that regard, it was out of deference to your good self, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, and the Cathaoirleach that I held off moving it until now. It was the Cathaoirleach's advice that we defer our consideration of this item until we were nearer the time of termination. We are coming perilously close to the time when the Minister would be expected to speak and the movers of the motion would be expected to reply. I can see a limited number of Senators who would want to offer to speak. It was for that reason and out of deference to the Chair that I held off moving it until now. I interpret Standing Order 41 (a) as, in fact, entitling us to add an hour if we so wish to the three hours given for motions.
In case Senator Higgins might succeed in luring people of the opposite sex into agreeing to what the Cathaoirleach might not agree to, I would suggest an amendment that we continue the debate, because it appears to me as if it might not go on for one hour after the prescribed time, from 8.30 p.m. to finish it on the understanding that it will not go on for long. We prepared our speakers on the basis of the time limit imposed by the Standing Order. In the other House when that happens the Opposition or Government speakers have to share the time they have. We should agree to an amendment to continue to finish in less than one hour.
I understand that Senator Smith's amendment is one hour or, should we finish earlier, that we finish at that point.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I am delighted, as Leas-Chathaoirleach, that the Upper House sees the importance of the motion. Does the Minister of State want to come in now and let the debate continue?
If the debate is now going to be, to some extent, open-ended, that is my intention; but I will facilitate Senators with any arrangements.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
It is not open-ended.
We are just allowing in one or two more speakers.
In that case I will wait.
Out of respect for the Leas-Chathaoirleach's patience and courage in making such a good decision, I will stay within my own 15 minutes.
Has the Senator a choice in that matter?
Not at all. I was paying a compliment to the Leas-Chathaoirleach.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
For which I will probably get into trouble later on tonight.
I will take up immediately a point made by the preceding speaker. It is important that it is not omitted from this debate. It is an advantage to speak before the Minister speaks. It is very important that he should respond to the submission that is being made to him and to all Members of this House by the National Youth Council of Ireland which was very specific in the detail of the items to which it asked us to respond. It made proposals for a national social guarantee for young people which would include a guarantee of some form of experience, be it in terms of work, training or financed education for young people, within a defined period of time. It spoke, secondly, of something that has been taken up by almost every speaker: the need to redefine the concept of work. It spoke also for strong political support for the Youth Employment Agency. Linked to that was the whole question that no bureaucratic division should impede the Youth Employment Agency in any way. Fourthly, it spoke of the need for a stronger emphasis on job creation. I endorse that recommendation. My personal view is that I would be inclined to make a commitment to such a proposal.
I hope that what I have to say now will not be misconstrued in any way. I noticed that Senator Howlin mentioned that he had confidence that this problem would effectively be addressed within the immediate few years. I am not being in the least partisan or disloyal when I express reservations about whether it will in effect be addressed. I want to give the reasons for that. I believe that unemployment does not enjoy the status of the other problems that have been defined as the problems besetting the economy. They are essentially two in most of the western economies. One has been the problem of servicing the public borrowing requirement when you have reached the ceiling of taxation, when you have a tax revolt on your hands, when people say they will not pay any more taxes. The only other prong, on the traditional economic management argument, is that you look at the question of cuts. If you go for cuts you increase unemployment and thus you have descriptive statements being made about the economy that you can have a reduction in inflation, that you can have even better interest rates but that you have a continuing rise in the overall unemployment statistics. That kind of descriptive remark, which is usual in defining the economy in many administrations, in which you separate the unemployment problem from the basic structural problems of the economy, is disastrous. It is going the road of Britain and of other economies. I very carefully mention that point. There is no way in which you can follow traditional economic strategies and make any indent on the unemployment statistics.
My point is that we have not accurately given a status to the problem of unemployment. Equally, on the European level, there is every evidence that we continually under-estimate the problem of unemployment. I do not want to go into that very much but in the methodology of assessing the unemployed in Europe — the 20,000 odd they are out in many statistics — it is found that they are probably out mostly in relation to measuring the extent of youth unemployment. One would not want to be rhetorical and pious about this whole question of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Let us be perfectly clear that the most important statement that has been made by different Senators in this House this afternoon has been in relation to the redefinition of work. I hope Senators realise what it means. It means that you break the connection between the idea that if you do not hold a job that is related to production for the market you are not entitled to income or if you are entitled to income you are entitled to an income that will be defined under social policy as some kind of welfare benefit to which a particular status in the community is attached. If you are saying break that link, I wholeheartedly agree with you, because the problem is one of getting income out across the community in such a way that you will not lock yourself into poor law schemes of dealing with an economy that is in a period of contraction. This is very important. There are things that we can do that are important now. The question of the redefinition of work is a crucial point.
Let us be clear why I said I was pessimistic. I have been reading the different economic forecasts on the economy for many years. There are very few people within orthodox economics who hold the view that is being expressed in the Seanad this afternoon. It is very interesting the different advices that have been given. For example, Ciaran Kennedy and Foley's document, Industrial Development, Brendan Dowling and Durkan's edited Irish Economic Policy: Review of Major Issues and the Dublin Economic Social Research Institute in 1978 came up with three measures in which they addressed the problem of unemployment, measures to increase industrial output, measures to increase the spin-off effects of industrial output on activity elsewhere in the economy and measures to reduce the growth of labour productivity and they assessed these. I make the point that this is orthodox thinking, the idea being that you can somehow or other create an atmosphere in which people will respond to incentives to industrial production and this will in turn enable you to reduce your unemployment figure. All the evidence is against that thinking. Only last night I quoted the European figure. Unemployment in the European Community is now over 13 million. To get back to the old definition of full employment, under 4 per cent or so, we would need to create a million jobs a year between now and 1995. The Community has produced 280,000 jobs in its best year, thus the projected unemployment figure for 1995 at present trends in the Community, given existing population forecast, is 50 million. This is the size of the problem. Thus it is absolute twaddle for conventional economists to keep on talking about the cyclical nature of unemployment and to suggest that you can somehow or another use 1960 solutions to a problem of the magnitude of the 1980s. It simply makes no sense. Thus new measures need to be taken. For example, if you are not going to get the quantitative growth in the economy in western Europe and in Ireland in particular, you could get qualitative growth. Therefore, there is much merit in specific proposals that have been made by many bodies, including the NYCI, in relation to job creation of a qualitative kind.
I will say five things about this. First of all, it is possible to encourage investment programmes in the field of environmental protection and energy policy. Second, it is crucial in relation to overall fiscal management that you move away from financial investment to genuine productive investment. This point has been made already. Third, it is necessary by structural policies to boost exports on the basis of technological progress. Fourth, one I wholeheartedly endorse and which has many implications: it is important if you are to stimulate demand to have an incomes policy that will benefit the lower income groups particularly. Finally, there is no doubt that we must look at the whole question of differentiated working hours, shorter working lives etc. In this regard we are doing nothing novel or new. For example, in the Federal Republic of Germany all the women can retire at 63 on a slightly reduced pension. In Sweden men and women can retire at 60 on a reduced pension. Since 1976 in France there is a full retirement pension at the age of 60 years. In Belgium the normal retirement age is 64 for men and 60 for women. It is a question of adjustments in relation to the length of the life span.
It is extremely important to examine these measures in three ways. There are short-term measures such as I have been describing, medium-term measures in relation to economic management, and long-term measures. The long-term measures involve the shifting of economic thinking into an acknowledgement of the size of the structural problem of unemployment. I do not intend to delay on the rather silly suggestion that our unemployment problem is exacerbated by the equal participation of men and women. It would be very wrong if we took a problem like our unemployment level and used it as an opportunity to make a case against real gains in equality which were long overdue. What it would achieve would be infinitesimal compared to the impact of the elimination of women from the work force.
Youth unemployment cannot be separated from the general economic position, but people are a little coy about what is happening in relation to the economy. Overall, the western economies are suffering from high interest rates in the United States. Let us see the parlous nature of that. Those high interest rates were brought about by the high level of Government borrowing when there was a commitment to reduce taxes. That high borrowing is for military expenditure. Thus at the same time as we have an unemployment crisis in Europe provoked by high American interest rates, the borrowing is being spent on militarism. We have the co-existence of militarism and unemployment.
I endorse every word that is being said by Senators from all sides who have been making the case for a rethink in relation to the whole question of unemployment. The advisers to Governments, this Government, the last Government and all the previous four or five Governments, are operating from premises in orthodox economics that are related to market performance. There is no point in saying that you must create an atmosphere of incentives in the private sector. I have not the time to review the history of the Irish private sector, one of the most assisted in Europe. Moneys for depreciation, promotion and export tax relief are forked out to them. No other private sector has had such a list of incentives, and their employment creation record is one of the worst in Europe.
We are here discussing youth unemployment when we have not submitted our industrial policy to examination. The Telesis report has been leaked and commented upon. We are told there that our reliance on one form of industrialisation strategy is weak and negative. We should have discussed it long before now, but the notion that you can fork out money to the private sector and create an atmosphere to help to reduce youth unemployment is rubbish.
On the other side it is important to be optimistic. It is impossible to believe that side by side with the neglected question of unemployment and youth unemployment in particular you would have cutbacks in education. Surely it is time above all else to put money into education. People from the other side of the House have spoken about robotisation. There are 16,000 robots at work in the Japanese economy. A robot can weld a car in 25 seconds. We need to get beyond the three phases of industrialisation — the present state of micro-technology, followed by bio-technology, followed by robotisation — to anticipate the fourth stage. To do that you need to educate your population instead of neglecting unemployment and particularly youth unemployment and at the same time cutting education. We should look at a whole new mix of survival time, education time and leisure time. That requires the new thinking that people have been speaking about in this debate this afternoon. That is the way that we should go.
The fact that I speak about these long-term things does not mean that I see them as in any way an absolution from thinking in the medium-term and in the short-term. In the short-term it is important that the agencies that exist get the political support to be rescued from clientist politics, that they be widely disseminated in relation to what measures are being promised and that there be little jealousy in competition between the different youth strategies that exist. To my mind they suffer from lack of integration. There is some evidence of a jealous protection of areas and definitions within acts, functions, scopes and powers. It is time that an end was put to that. What is important is that they would make the maximum impact in the short-term in relation to schemes that would be of benefit to young people.
Finally, it is important, if work is to be redefined in the long-term that it be redefined in the short-term also. If work is redefined, what will be put in its place? When I read all the stuff about community value and so on I find it hard to believe that somebody who plays the saxophone on the streeet and whose hands go blue is not involved in a valuable and important activity. If individuals choose an activity that is of value to and extends themselves and provides value and pleasure to the community, be it in any field, education, the arts or any activities like that, they should be encouraged and assisted.
I have listened to many young Deputies in the Dáil and young Senators in this House. I hope they will not be upset if I say that the majority of them are much more conservative in their thinking than I am. They realise that their careers will probably do very much better if they avoid the rather eccentric opinions that have been attached to me for some time. I wish them some radicalism because you cannot let words come out of your mouth about redefining work and at the same time go on living and co-existing within a system that has produced so much unemployment. It means structural change is the implication of what people are saying. I hope they are prepared to live with it. I hope they are able to convince their elders of the necessity of moving from an economy that produces the scandal of so much unemployment to one in which it would be regarded as an obligation to provide and assist activity and to sustain income to enable people to live in dignity and in a way that develops them and is of benefit to the community.
I compliment the speakers who have spoken so far and their approach to this motion which we are delighted has come before the Chamber for debate. It is important that we treat it seriously. Speaking from my experience of dealing with youth and as a father, unless we arrest the problem in the not too distant future our youth will no longer accept the legislation being dished out to them.
I agree with Senator Higgins when he said the policies of the sixties could not be adapted to the eighties. The advancement of technology creates unemployment. Let no one think that it creates employment. We have a reputation for gearing our youth to take up jobs here or abroad. In the old days people went across the water to seek employment. They cannot do that today. We must take responsibility for the creation of jobs for our increasing population.
We have 57,000 young people unemployed. They leave the educational assembly line and accept jobs for which they were not trained. They are desperate to get jobs in order to get money and mark time until the day comes when the jobs they were trained for come on the market.
We must give full support to the Youth Employment Agency and widen its terms of reference if necessary. It has been said that the 1 per cent levy to fund the agency does not serve the purpose it was intended for. We have had several schemes of a temporary nature which were non-productive. They included environmental schemes and so on. They give temporary relief but they are not the answer. We must provide jobs. I appeal to those civil servants who prepare these schemes to think out how the unemployment problem can be tackled.
Successive Governments have undertaken schemes to create employment. I have often said that there are a number of people who are unemployed at work. I see them around me every day. If the unemployed people at work were working further jobs would be created. We have high absenteeism and other ills in our employment structure.
Is that peculiar to Mayo?
Not really. It could apply to Tipperary just as well. I welcome the debate. I am sure the Minister is proud of the sincere way in which it is being conducted. I can see our youth adopting revolutionary tactics. They can be contained for a certain length of time but not indefinitely. We must create the necessary employment for them here. We must tackle the problem in a logical and practical way. It is sad that the main function of interview boards interviewing young girls who wish to pursue a nursing career is to see how they can knock the candidates. At the end of the day they arrive at a figure to suit the requirements of the hospital. Most young people are aware that the right type of person does not always get the job. Young people are prepared to take any job rather than sit at home. Those Senators who have families will know this.
We must give full political and financial support to the various agencies. We must provide policies which will create jobs. I realise we are going through stringent financial times. It has been suggested that the retirement age should be reduced to 60, as is the case in other countries, but this only creates another problem because people will be receiving pensions sooner than heretofore and thereby will be longer on pension. For that reason, it is not profitable to do that. The day has come when mothers nursing in hospitals are keeping their trained daughters out of jobs and this will have to be tackled. That is the reason for this motion being tabled. Irrespective of what Government are in power, policies will have to be geared to solving this problem. I do not want to be political but we must programme for a five- or ten-year period. Programming from year to year to meet the challenge of this serious problem is not sufficient. We will have to programme well into the nineties to indicate to the young people that we, as legislators, are doing what in our view is the best in trying to tackle this problem which will not go away. There is no other outlet and we must retain our youth in our own country. The only outlet would be a world war, which is a desperate thought. People of the Eastern bloc and some other countries might welcome that, but we would not welcome the elimination of our youth. It is our duty to ensure that our legislation is geared towards creating as many jobs as possible and that is what we should be doing. I thank the Senators for the worthwhile way in which they have received this motion.
Before I call the next speaker, I must tell the Members that the Minister must speak and the Opposition have 15 minutes for winding up the debate and I see a number of Members offering.
I understand that in our absence the House took the matter into its own hands and that it ordered business to be extended to 9.30 p.m. I was not here at the time.
Or until those offering have been facilitated.
I do not want this to be held as a precedent and to be quoted to me by Senators at any time. I think advantage was taken of my absence.
I assure the Cathaoirleach that there was no intention of taking advantage of him. It was to seek not to deprive one or two people who had offered.
I do not want to deprive anybody, either.
It was noted that the Cathaoirleach was not in the Chair at that time.
I must defend myself here. It was from the floor of the House that the ruling was given to me as Leas-Chathaoirleach.
Fair enough.
Could I put on record that we anticipated the Cathaoirleach's generosity?
In welcoming this motion from the Opposition and all the individual contributions, I would like to state that our Government's commitment and total concern about this problem are quite evident. So far, in our period of office we have demonstrated this concern in many ways. There is no doubt that the single most pressing problem in our society at the moment is the unemployment question. Many of our other problems result from this. Being a teacher, I am very much aware of the problems which our youth face at present. The frustration and anxiety that accompany the prospects of joining the dole queues have a very disheartening effect on many of them. It can only lead to further alienation and total disenchantment with our system and with society in general.
Delinquency, high rates of drop-out and attraction to subversive activities as mentioned earlier are just a few results and symptoms of this problem. The unemployment issue is an historical one in civilisation and is not something new. Various communities and societies in the past have resorted to solving the problem by using methods which were relevant to that particular period. Whereas we look to the past for experience, it is for the present and future that we must seek remedies.
Again, being a teacher, I am very close to this situation and every day come in contact with issues and problems facing our youth. I find that their lack of motivation and initiative and in some cases their total indifference towards their future are quite frightening. It is a long time since I began to listen to political commentators and people making speeches on political platforms and their main theme always is that they are going to solve the problem of unemployment. Let us be honest and face reality. Although we can articulate very well on the subject, as some have done here tonight, we must ask ourselves, are we making an honest effort to solve the problem? We must as a nation face up to this problem from Government and Opposition down to community level. We all share a similar responsibility.
There are various aspects of Government policy which can affect unemployment, but there is no doubt that initiative from communities can have a similar effect on the unemployment issue. In some cases it can be more effective, as has been the experience in some of the projects which have been initiated by the Government in the recent past. Both Government and community must make an honest effort to explore every avenue possible through which we can employ our youth. There must be a relationship between the Government and the community. If they do not work together on this issue, I can see the problem being exaggerated and posing a bigger threat to our society in the future.
Figures quoted in a recent newspaper article by an economist, Mr. McCabe, show that 57,000 people under 25 years of age are unemployed. Again, let me add that some of those included in that figure may work in part-time jobs and in employment which is not recorded. The most disturbing aspect of the figure is that it has increased by 13 per cent since 1982. That demonstrates that, despite the efforts being made by the Government agencies, there has not been success in overcoming the unemployment problem. At the same time, I welcome the initial efforts made by the Government in supporting and funding the various agencies involved in youth employment and training in their budgetary allocations for 1982. As the Minister pointed out in Galway recently, they were in excess of what the agencies sought. This bears testimony to the Government's commitment to solving the problem of unemployment. We must recognise and accept that there is an urgent need to curb and cut expenditure, but an increase in these allocations must be welcomed.
At a later stage no doubt the Minister will quote some figures. The Department of Labour increased the allocation to the employment incentive scheme by £3.8 million for 1982-83. They increased the allocations to the work experience programme, the grant scheme for youth employment, and the community youth training programme. I welcome those increases. The new Youth Employment Agency have definite possibilities. They will play a major role in solving our unemployment problem in the future. They have made a sizeable impact on the problem. This will become more evident in the future.
Senator Honan said there was a cutback in the amount of money spent on recreational and sporting activities. Some of the money which was cut back was channelled into the Olympic training programme for 1984. While it is not desirable that any area should be deprived of funds the Olympic training programme is worthwhile and should be supported. I agree with Senator Honan that since we have an unemployment problem we must provide recreational and leisure facilities. Every effort should be made by the Government to ensure that proper facilities are available.
In a broader sense the Government have definite policies with which I totally agree. In order to achieve the highest possible return in economically sustainable jobs for the capital input involved, we must strive to provide jobs with a future. Previous speakers emphasised the fact that the concept of work should be redefined. If we are to provide worthwhile jobs they must have a future. Too often in the past public finances have been wasted on the creation of jobs to satisfy an immediate need. We can all quote examples of factories which were set up for political purposes, or to meet the immediate needs of an area. They collapsed after a while due to a lack of planning. They had no future in reality.
We must have very clear-cut objectives. As the Taoiseach said, there is a need for a planned approach to the development of the economy to solve the unemployment problem. Any approach which is not planned and structured is doomed to failure. In the past we had too many programmes which were designed to meet an immediate need and had no future prospects. When they did not succeed the problem was aggravated.
The Government are endeavouring to identify areas with an expansive employment potential. Although some of them have been cited already, I should like to cite some which I consider worthy of being explored. There is a considerable potential in development in the food processing industry. As Senator Smith said, it is a shame and a disgrace on all of us, and farmers in particular, that we import so many foodstuffs. We have the best climate and the greatest potential in the world for the production of agricultural and horticultural products, and we are not utilising this potential to the full. Two major problems at the moment, apart from unemployment, are the high cost of fuel and the high cost of food. If we produced more food, we could make it available to the people in the cities at far less cost.
There is a considerable potential in the glasshouse industry, in the development of our forestry and peat industries, and in the development of potentially rich agricultural land which is lying dormant at the moment. When we talk of agricultural production, we are inclined to look at the productive areas and the productive farms. We have all seen very well-developed farms in the midst of waste land and bogland. The good farms have been developed due to the initiative of individual farmers. We must look at the land which is lying waste at the moment and try to make it productive. In this way we would encourage the provision of more employment in the agricultural sector.
As a part of our educational system I think we have lost sight of the requirements of the individuals who on leaving the system face modern society. Unemployment is very much a national problem. All politicians share the responsibility for solving it. We must endeavour to offer solutions and to co-operate with each other in order to maintain our system of Government. Otherwise the youth will look for alternative methods. To protect democracy we have to provide measures, and be seen to provide them, which will solve our unemployment problem.
I should like to congratulate Senator Deenihan on the way in which he tried to bring together the two dimensions, the Government on the one hand, and the community on the other. In recent years we thought that by planning from the centre of the State we could bring about the sort of social change necessary to give people more employment, better health, a better sense of their own esteem, and so on. At the end of his speech he correctly mentioned that young people would turn to alternative methods of employment. It would be wrong of me having come from County Antrim, not to say that, in the 14 years of violence we have had, I can think of little that has been more revolting to me than the murder of six people today in a very heightened atmosphere of tension, undoubtedly to provoke the Westminster Government to bring about the reintroduction of hanging in Northern Ireland. The motivation of death to produce judicial death as a pretext for more death is something that all Irishmen who hope for a better Ireland for their children—that is what we are talking about this afternoon—should join me in condemning. I despair when I look at what will be required of society to meet the challenges that have been outlined here this afternoon. We are facing a dramatically changed social scene. We are entering a new era. How many of us at local community level are prepared to take up the challenge? It is easy to give responsibility to the central institutions of the State and those who hold power in them and, in a way, to abdicate one's own personal responsibility, but unless we do something to liberate the talent where it exists, and to use the resources where they are known, and to use them fairly, we will go nowhere.
I said once before it was necessary to redefine "all men are born equal" because in today's highly centralised society that has come to mean, "all men should have an equal opportunity to be the same". In fact, to meet the challenge of this era we must surely look at society and say, "all men should have the same opportunity to be different". How do we find, develop and liberate the uniqueness that is the inheritance of each one of Ireland's citizens? We will not do that if we emphasise or over-emphasise central planning. We need central planning to ensure that there is fair play, but unless we move the debate to where it rightly belongs at community level we will miss the whole point of what is necessary to face the sort of challenges which were mentioned this morning and the ones which daily become more and more apparent.
I, unfortunately, missed most of Senator Michael D. Higgins's contribution, but knowing him I am certain he must have dealt with the implications of the super technology. If we are going to espouse super technology and think in terms of employment as we were accustomed to it, we will have an ecological disaster on our hands, let alone also encouraging the forces which Senator O'Toole referred to. Therefore, we have to accept, as Senators have indicated, that there is no question of wanting more man-woman hours in employment; it is a question of accepting that society might be much better with fewer man-woman hours in employment. The question then is: how do we cope with the machines, on the one hand, and what do we do with the more woman- and man-hours which become available to us in community, on the other? There is no greater time to have a new look at radical community socialism than now. That, to my mind, is what real republicanism is about. Surely the challenge today is to say, fewer and fewer people will control these large machines or the machines of super technology. Therefore, it becomes more important than ever to ask how are the profits distributed, how are the products shared and how is the philosophy of the machinery controlled? Is it to be controlled from the centre dictating the need of the citizen or is the citizen in his community going to determine what his need is and to ensure through an alliance of similar enterprise, of similar scale in different communities how the centre of the State will respond to it? That is one side of it. The other side is, what do we do when we suddenly see that there is more time? Are we to have a life-affirming or a death-pursuing society? If we are to have a life-affirming society it becomes important as Senators have mentioned, to make a distinction between employment and work straight away and to recognise that all work is valid. The women's movement, if they have done nothing else, have surely brought home to men that all work is valid.
Secondly, is there an outlet for that talent I referred to earlier? Do we have in our educational system the means, let alone the will, to liberate the talents of our young citizens, to develop them for the new world of tomorrow? When we talk of creative activity and the joy of participation, let us also think about another form of participation and let us face the issues of class and capital because there is no greater challenge to community politics than class and capital. Many men who identify with community cease to identify it once the interests of class and capital clash with the interests of community. If we are going to do that we must not just talk about idle participation. It is easy to say. To fire a question in one's own community takes more courage than to fire a bullet in someone else's. That is of no avail, as we have found in Northern Ireland, unless one has the power to make questioning and the reasoning that goes after the questioning effective. I beg Senators, and particularly the Minister, to look with imagination and courage at what is needed in Ireland today, to liberate the talent of the people and look at the resources that are available at community level as well as at central level.
Keynes, who is responsible for the sort of economics Senator Higgins referred to, talked once about foul is fair and fair is foul for a little longer. That little longer has lasted a very long time. It is time we looked freshly at society and asked ourselves if it is the rationalisation of resources with which we have been obsessed, which has led to more and more centralisation but it is not the liberation of resourcefulness which must go with it. Does that not need a new liberation at community level?
If we are going to have it we must have a new tax system and I mentioned here before the need for this. Why not let us give to the communities the money to decide on their own priorities and yet leave in the centre sufficient which can be shifted on a sliding scale from privileged communities to deprived communities. I throw out figures as an illustration but there is no particular merit in the figures that I use. If, for example, Ireland was divided in four regions and there were one million people living in each region and we had one tax: 10 per cent went centrally, 20 per cent went to the region and 40 per cent went to the community, we would still have 30 per cent left over to shift on a sliding scale which central Government and central institutions would use to ensure that there was fair or increasingly fair distribution. That is no good unless we also encourage political participation at local level so that we put our faith and trust in the people to solve their own problems, each with the other, and together enforcing the centre of the State to respond to the need defined by them and no longer to be allowed to continue to dictate on the grounds of expert opinion exclusively what their needs should be.
I would like at the outset to thank Senators who contributed to this very worthwhile debate and to express my regret that, even with the decision taken by the Seanad, the debate was limited. It was obvious from a number of the contributions that a great deal of thought, compassion and concern had gone into those contributions.
It was obvious from the mail we have been receiving over the last few days that this debate was attracting a certain degree of interest outside the House. A number of Senators referred to the briefing material they had received from the National Youth Council of Ireland. I hope Senators found it useful. They will agree that the expertise and imagination which was brought to bear is a clear justification of the policy of successive Governments in affording consultative status to the National Youth Council.
A number of Senators found it helpful to refer to the unemployment situation as it affects our neighbours in Europe. It would be helpful at the outset to take a brief overview of the scale of youth unemployment in the Communities. While the situation does, of course, differ between one member state and another, the increasing youth unemployment problem is one which is common to the European Communities as a whole.
For the past five years, the unemployment rate among young people in the European Communities has been more than double that of adults. At present, out of a total of over 12 million unemployed, more than 4.5 million are young people under 25 years of age. Young people represent over 40 per cent of the total registered unemployed, despite comprising only about 20 per cent of the total labour force. The recession has brought about an increase, not only in the rate, but also in the duration of their unemployment: there are over two million young people without a job for over six months. In addition, almost one and a half million have been without a job for over a year. The average rate for adult unemployment is about 11 per cent, whereas for young people it is over 20 per cent. It has been estimated that, in present circumstances, 2.5 million jobs would need to be created in order to bring the average youth unemployment rate down to that of adults. Where do we fit into that picture?
Ireland's population is growing at about four times, and its labour force at about twice, the EEC average. Almost every Senator who contributed said that with 48 per cent under the age of 25 in 1981, Ireland has the youngest population in Europe. The numbers reaching school leaving age — which rose from 50,000 per annum in 1971 to 68,000 in 1979 — are likely to remain in the region of 67,000 to 70,000 each year throughout the eighties. There has been increased participation in education by young adults, and this reduced the numbers seeking work at the lower age levels. The net position however is that the 15 to 24 year old labour force is projected to grow by 3,000 per annum during the eighties.
Registered youth unemployment has been rising considerably faster than adult unemployment. In the past year, however, the disparity between the two rates of increase has lessened considerably: in each of the two years to the end of June 1982, the numbers under 25 on the live register increased at about twice the rate for those over 25. But, in the year to the end of June 1983, youth unemployment grew at just one-and-a-half times the adult rate. This reduction in the disparity between the two rates of growth undoubtedly reflects the impact of the large increase in the number of places in youth training and employment schemes resulting from the introduction of the youth employment levy, a point to which I shall be returning later in more detail.
Those figures I have just given serve to underline the magnitude of the problem which, in common with our EC partners, we face in the years ahead. For our country, the problem is inter-linked with, and exacerbated by, a series of other problems, all arising from the disastrous loss of control over the economic management of our country in previous years. It is significant that almost all Senators went beyond the narrow brief of youth unemployment and spoke about the problems of job creation and unemployment generally, and some Senators spoke on wider issues.
This Government have shunned perpetration of the pied piper policies which were being pursued in the past, and which led our people to a very dangerous brink. Instead, with vigour and determination, we have set about correcting the fiscal position which we inherited. Our efforts to regain an effective measure of control over Ireland's economic future are, even at this early stage in our term of office, beginning to bear fruit. A start has been made in restoring order to the public finances; in reducing the crushing burden of our external debt; in halting the decline in competitiveness.
The Government's strategies have a clear social objective — the creation of the conditions in which employment will be available for our people. Employment is dependent on a lasting return to economic growth with a consequential increase in aggregate labour demand. Economic progress and our desired standard of living can only be well founded on the country producing sufficient competitive marketable products to pay for our imports and other expenditures. That is the reality of our economic situation and we must accept it.
Young people are among the most vulnerable groups in the labour market, and so unemployment generally has a disproportionate impact on them. This motion refers to the "totally unacceptable levels of youth unemployment". Our previous record in Government shows that we went beyond talking about "unacceptable levels": we recognised that specific measures in favour of young people were urgently required, and we took the necessary action. We brought forward the Youth Employment Agency Act, 1981. Under this Act, the Youth Employment Agency was established, and the youth employment levy was introduced, in March and April of last year respectively.
What was the situation prior to establishment of the Youth Employment Agency? Prior to the establishment of the Youth Employment Agency in 1982, there were five main training and employment programmes in existence which where specifically youth-oriented. These programmes were set up between 1976 and 1978 and they operated a low level of activity, relatively speaking, during that period. They are: the work experience programme; the community youth training programme; the community training workshops; the temporary grant scheme for youth employment and the environmental improvements scheme.
These programmes were effective, within their limited terms of reference, relative to the needs of the time and to the resources then available. It must be said, however, that they were set up in a somewhat ad hoc fashion. Consequently, they developed like a patchwork and in an unco-ordinated way which, in turn, hindered full expolitation of their potential. Furthermore, many of the programmes did not appear to do enough to help the disadvantaged young people who were most in need of them.
Clearly then, there was a need to bring about co-ordination of the activities of the various bodies involved in administering the programmes, in order to maximise the effectiveness both of their operations and use of resources. The formulation of a comprehensive, overall framework was called for, within which all the bodies in question could work harmoniously to achieve agreed objectives in so far as the youth labour market was concerned.
The mandate given to the Youth Employment Agency was based on a recognition of the need to effect a unified and concerted a approach to youth training, work experience and employment measures. The agency was designated as the overall body, under the Minister for Labour, responsible for activities in favour of the young unemployed and for the co-ordination of those activities. The agency is unique in having an integrated range of responsibilities across all of the services required to give effect to manpower policies for young people between the ages of 15 and 25. The agency has the key role, not only in relation to co-ordinating existing facilities but, also, their expansion due to the additional financial resources available since the introduction of the youth employment levy. The proceeds of that levy, being a separate identifiable source of public funding, have the important advantage of facilitating planning on a longer term basis by the agency.
Let us look then at the activities of the agency and at the first nine months of its existence. In 1982, during the first nine months of its existence, the Youth Employment Agency directed its attention primarily at the operations of existing youth programmes, so as to ensure that as many new participants as possible were absorbed according as the programmes expanded throughout the year as the funding from the levy came on stream. Better information systems were developed too, with the aim of achieving greater precision in the design and targeting of programmes. The agency also approved financial support for over 50 projects which could not be accommodated within existing programmes. Those projects were, in the main, established at community level for disadvantaged groups and areas.
At the end of 1982, the agency published a document entitled "A Policy Framework for the Eighties," which outlined some of the main features of the context within which the agency will be working over this decade, and the main policy directions which it will follow in the light of those considerations. The document pointed to the fact that there is virtually no area critical to the overall objectives of the agency where bodies with whom it can co-operate do not already exist and to the fact that, in some cases at least, the programmes through which the objectives of the agency can be achieved are already in place. It was in that context that the agency believed it important for it to provide a coherent set of objectives and principles on which it, and indeed other bodies, could plan and implement their activities.
The first agency initiative during 1983 which I should like to highlight is the establishment, in the near future, of six demonstration projects at community level, which will integrate the activities of education, training, recruitment, job creation and local authorities. That is a development of particular interest to Senator Robb whose contribution touched on that area. The projects are based on the setting up of Community Training and Employment Consortia — Senators will be glad to know they will not be expected to remember that mouthful, that those agencies already have an abbreviated name to label themselves with, COMTECs. COMTECs will be representative of all local manpower and community interests. The agency organised a seminar only last month to enable its proposals in this regard to be fully discussed by interested State, education, local authority, employer, trade union, youth and voluntary organisations.
At that COMTECs seminar, the agency pinpointed the integration and co-ordination of existing youth programmes as being a major element in increasing the value young people get from the large public expenditure now being devoted to these programmes through introduction of the youth employment levy. The agency sees this involving, in essence, the development of a "single shop window", where young people can have access, at one point, to information on all of the range of options open to them, so that they can make informed choices between those options. Again it is fair to say that it is very close to ideas outlined by the Leas-Chathaoirleach, Senator Honan, in her contribution.
The need for a single focus of this kind, which the agency has identified, relates not only to the young unemployed and school-leavers, but also to the increasing number of community organisations on whom the public programmes depend for co-operation. The rapid expansion of public training and employment programmes has given them a significant role in the transition period between education and working life. The vast majority of those participating in programmes are teenagers some of the older participants are recent leavers from third level colleges. The National Manpower Service survey of school-leavers in 1982 showed that one-fifth of all school-leavers in 1981 who did not go on to third level education participated in either AnCO training or the work experience programme during their first year out of school.
In its proposals for COMTECs, the agency is, therefore, looking towards the establishment or reinforcement of a number of links — firstly between those bodies responsible for the operation of youth training and employment programmes; secondly, between those bodies, young people and community groups; and, thirdly, between the bodies and the educational system, to which their work now relates very closely. That link between the educational system and the world of work occupied the minds of many Senators.
Long-term unemployment among young people has grown during the present recession. In April 1980, there were fewer than 7,000 persons aged under 25 registered as unemployed for more than six months. By October 1982, this figure had risen to over 16,000. Available information suggests and it would be the view of most people in this House, that, after six months out of work, people find it increasingly difficult to re-enter employment. People with the lowest level of skills and education predominate this group to a greater degree than among the unemployed overall.
In accordance with its mandate to provide for increased penetration for youth training and employment schemes among disadvantaged youth, the Youth Employment Agency has recognised the need to give priority access, for the longer term young unemployed, to the range of such schemes provided for young people generally. Over 1983, the objective of the agency will be to move towards a situation where recruitment will take place exclusively from among this group for the programmes providing employment on community and environmental facilities. The intention, too, is that up to 50 per cent of existing training places for young people will be devoted, progressively, to those out of work for longer periods.
In developing programmes aimed at aiding job creation, the agency has had to take account of the variety of public incentives and aids already in existence. These include not only the grants and tax incentives provided for industrial development, but also a number of training programmes of the "start up your own business" type.
The agency's specific brief in the job creation field relates to community and youth enterprise. In this connection, the agency had two reviews carried out on its behalf — one, of the process of local employment creation; the other, of the financial situation facing communities and young individuals, including access to grant and/or loan finance. Arising from these reviews, the agency has now developed proposals for two programmes — the community and youth enterprise programme, and the loan guarantee schemes.
The community and youth enterprise programme, which is due to be launched next Tuesday, is an imaginative and potentially significant contribution to the creation of economically sustainable employment. It is not being presented by the agency as a short-term panacea for youth unemployment. Rather it is seen as a means of unlocking a hitherto unexploited potential for job creation. In this, as in other areas, the agency has, as a matter of policy, decided to engage only in activities which complement, rather than compete with, the activities of other bodies.
Under the community and youth enterprise programme, the agency will fund the employment by local groups with an approved project of a community enterprise worker for a set period to help to assess the viability of the project. The programme arises from the identification of a need for outside technical resources to help local groups take projects from the ideas to the implementation stage. The need may vary, from assessing the market for a product which it is known can be produced locally, to examining the possibility of local production for a known market.
Individuals and small local projects often face difficulties in access to loan finance for small amounts of working capital. The agency's proposals for the two loan guarantee schemes would involve it in part-guaranteeing bank loans to such projects. Negotiations are now under way with the major clearing banks, with a view to implementation of the schemes. When agreement has been reached, the agency intend to launch a major marketing campaign to inform the public, development officers and local community officers of the existence of the schemes.
Pending development of the loan guarantee schemes, the agency is continuing to examine job-creation proposals from individuals and groups on a case-by-case basis. As a result, grant assistance has been approved for a number of co-operative projects, as well as for a subsidy scheme to encourage the employment of technical and marketing graduates in small firms. Senator Honan and others mentioned the co-operative sector. These aids have led, to date, to the creation of over 200 full-time employment places, most of which are now filled. In all cases, the projects are aimed at generating jobs which will be sustainable without further public assistance.
The agency is also supporting three pilot projects providing back-up resources for young people starting their own enterprises. The first of these comprises programmes in Cork and Finglas, which provide, over a 12-month period, training in basic business skills, "incubator space" in which to initiate the enterprise, and continuing advice. There is also Youth Enterprises Shannon, which provides similar services for three groups in Limerick, Nenagh and Shannon as part of an EC-supported project. The third project is the Waterford Resource Centre for Co-operatives which, while still in its formative stages, is designed to develop small co-operative groups of young people providing goods and services for the local market. From these experiences, the agency intend to provide a basic model for resource centres with defined agency supports, which would be available for general application in 1984.
The agency's support for the expansion of State-aided youth training, work experience and employment programmes will continue in 1983. I shall be returning to this aspect when I come to give Senators a picture of the significant impact of levy funding on the expansion of these programmes. The agency has also been focusing on improved access to training for disadvantaged teenagers, through extension of the network of community training workshops. These teenagers are young travelling people, and young people, mainly in inner city or, large suburban areas, who have left the educational system relatively early. Almost one in ten young people leave school without qualifications, and the unemployment rate among this group is now over 40 per cent.
The innovative characteristic of the youth employment levy lies, as I have mentioned, in its being a separate source of funding, devoted solely to youth training and employment schemes. Senator Smith suggested there was a fear that the levy was being used by the Government to replace existing funds. That is not so and an examination of where the money has been expended since the creation of the agency puts that beyond any doubt. Introduction of the levy, under the 1981 Act, was designed to bring about a substantial increase in expenditure on such schemes—which has happened—so as to ensure that they could be expanded to meet the need arising from the rapidly rising levels of youth unemployment.
An overview of the expenditure and participation levels in relation to the schemes, from 1981—the year prior to introduction of the levy—to 1983 will indicate the extent to which our objective is being met.
In 1981, £19 million was spent on youth training and employment schemes. In 1982, during the first nine months in which the levy became payable, expenditure rose to some £35 million. This year, the first full collection year for the levy, expenditure is expected to reach in the region of £77 million. Senators will appreciate that, due to the constraints on the public finances, increases in funding of that magnitude would not be likely to have taken place in the absence of the introduction of the levy.
In 1981, 22,478 young people participated in the major youth training and employment schemes then in operation. Participation rose by 50 per cent to some 32,500 in 1982. In 1983, the number of participants is expected to be over 45,000: in other words, double the number participating in 1981. The average number of participants at any time — which is a better measure of activity levels — has increased more rapidly, from 7,500 in 1981 to over 20,000 in 1983. This is because programmes such as the work experience programme which last for longer periods of up to six months, have expanded relatively rapidly.
The Youth Employment Agency, as we have seen, look in general to existing bodies as opposed to assuming an executive role itself. For that reason, in addition to the agency, the principal beneficiary bodies where the levy is concerned have, to date, been: the Department of Labour, in respect of the work experience programme, the grant scheme for youth employment and, this year, the youth element of the employment incentive scheme; the Department of the Environment, in respect of the environmental improvements scheme operated by the local authorities: the Department of Education, this year, in respect of the pre-employment and secretarial courses; AnCO, in respect of apprenticeship training, community workshops, the community youth training programme and adult courses for unemployed people of which 70 per cent of the participants are now under 25; and CERT.
I take this opportunity to mention that last February the Youth Employment Agency set up a review group to examine the operation of a number of publicly-funded schemes, including the work experience programme — Senator Honan mentioned this — under which young people are placed with employers. The National Manpower Service, the FUE and ICTU are represented on the review group. A primary concern of the group is to identify the impact of work experience placements on the operation of the Labour market, that is the possible displacement of permanent workers by young persons participating in the schemes; and to make proposals for minimisation of any adverse side effects which may exist. If any Member of the Seanad is aware of a case where this or any other scheme is being abused and young people exploited, I appeal to them to come forward so that action can be taken to weed out such abuses. I have indicated already that Senator Smith was incorrect in suggesting that the levy was replacing funding from the Social Fund or elsewhere.
However, aid from the European Social Fund is of course of considerable assistance though it is not in any way confined to programmes for young people. The fund has contributed in large measure to the rate of development of our vocational training facilities generally over the past decade. Grant approvals from the fund for Ireland have increased each year from over £4 million in the year we joined to an expected £130 million in 1983. I am sure Senators will understand the crucial importance for Ireland of the successful outcome of the recently completed review of the rules governing the fund. I am pleased to be associated in a minor way with the role played by the Minister for Labour on behalf of the Government in securing the solution which emerged at the meeting last month of the European Communities Social Affairs Minister in Luxembourg.
There are two aspects of the final package which deserve to be singled out. First, with effect from 1984, a legally guaranteed 40 per cent of the fund will, for the first time, be reserved for regions, including Ireland, of absolute priority within the European Community. Secondly — and this perhaps has more direct reference to the motion — 75 per cent of the budget for the fund will, subject to concertation with the European Parliament, be allocated to programmes in favour of young people.
I do not want to go on at any great length because I know that Senator Smith has to reply, but I think it would be appropriate at this stage to link in my treatment of the Government's response to the need to alleviate youth unemployment with the initiative emanating from the European Community known as the Social Guarantee, to which Senator Higgins made reference.
Senator Smith is entitled to come in at 9.15 p.m. There are others also offering.
I will be finished before then. The Social Guarantee was agreed recently by the European Community Joint Council of Social Affairs and Education Ministers. It is a central feature of the Community's vocational training policy as outlined in the resolution agreed by the member states. The resolution commits member states within the next five years (1) to do their utmost to ensure that, following compulsory education, all interested young people can benefit from at least six months' full time training and/or work experience; and (2) to pursue efforts designed to make vocational training available to young people who are without adequate qualifications and particularly those who are looking for work. The Government will see to it that the resolution is implemented as soon as possible. The social guarantee element, which is to involve a five year programme of action, is being referred to the Youth Employment Agency for achievement as part of a national youth employment policy within the five years specified.
I conclude by thanking Senators for the attention that they have given this matter and to assure them that some of the other issues they have raised, in particular the whole question of the transition from youth to working life, will be the subject of consideration by the recently announced national youth policy committee which is to begin work shortly.
I had indicated that I wished to speak, but because of my inexperience I also expected to be called. Unfortunately, the Minister had commenced his speech and I did not like to interrupt him. I am concerned that the joint committees as announced did not also include a joint committee on youth affairs under which youth employment, crime, the drugs problem, education and leisure and so on could have been included and discussed on a joint all-party committee basis. I should like specifically to ask the Minister, although I do not know whether I am in order in expecting a reply, if there is any move from his Department regarding the setting up of a joint all-party committee on youth affairs.
While I accept everything that has been said in general about youth, I am sick to the teeth of the phrase "our educated unemployed youth." As a teacher, I can see every advantage in education, in case Senator Smith comes back on me, but I do not think it helps people to enjoy unemployment.
I agree that the option of early retirement should be given. There are many people in jobs at the moment in which the whole scene has changed — for example, teaching. Many people who started teaching 20 and 30 years ago find themselves in a completely different scene at this stage. Many of them might very willingly retire at an earlier age but they have to work for 40 years to receive full pensions. Perhaps politicians should retire, earlier, but I suppose politics is a disease and it would need a new antibiotic to get rid of some of us.
There are other ways too.
I also support the concept of local community work. There is a pilot scheme in my area in which social welfare is linked up with the parish. It gives work. The whole question of unemployment is so serious that it is almost impossible to separate it from other problems. To keep repeating that we are going to have an explosive situation because of youth unemployment is not going to help in the slightest. I worry that that sort of talk encourages youth to riot. There is no easy solution to the unemployment of youth. I have been disjointed in my efforts to be brief.
Could I have 30 seconds to say that I hope to deal with that over the summer months? It has been delayed because we are anxious to involve youth organisations as well.
At a million a minute. Ba mhaith liom ar an gcéad dul síos mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis na cainteoirí uilig as ucht an iarracht a rinne siad go léir chun an díospóireacht seo a chur chun cinn agus a leathnú i dtaobh ceist fhostaíochta ógánaigh na tíre.
I should like to thank the Minister and Senators from all sides who contributed to this very important debate. I asked in the beginning that we should try to lift this debate above the normal political bashing that can take place on motions of this kind. I am very glad that, with one or two exceptions, speakers confined themselves to addressing this question in a very sincere and courageous way.
I should like, just before I make a few general comments, to deal with the question which was raised on this side of the House on the matter of attitudes towards the employment of married women. We have gone through a long history of liberalising systems, regulations and laws with regard to trying to have equality as between the sexes. I doubt very much if the eighties or nineties will be the time to redress some of the social objectives that have been achieved in this area. The Minister said:
The Government's strategies have a clear social objective — creation of the conditions in which employment will be available for our people. Employment is dependent on a lasting return to economic growth with a consequential increase in aggregate labour demand. Economic progress and our desired standard of living can only be well founded on the country producing sufficient competitive marketable products to pay for our imports and other expenditures. That is the reality of our economic situation and we must accept it.
I can take most of that paragraph and understand it, but I am afraid I cannot accept it because the tenor of my contribution and the contributions of a number of Senators from all sides pointed to our ever-increasing numbers of young people, and looking at what all conventional, economic thinking has been able to do in this regard, I am led to the belief that unless we are far more radical about this question there is no way we are going to cope with this problem on the basis of the conventional economics.
That is why in the beginning I put a number of questions to the Minister in relation to broader policy issues outside the Youth Employment Agency. I purposely did not lay undue emphasis in my contribution on the Youth Employment Agency because I feel that any youth employment agency, whatever powers or whatever funds it has, can only make a very small contribuiton in this overall area of finding job opportunities, changing stereotyped attitudes towards longstanding economic thinking and in general fostering a new attitude towards how we look at work, and how we prepare ourselves for the future, a future which we hope will give job opportunities to all people of different classes and creeds and of different capacities right throughout our community.
I am afraid the Minister fell into the trap of believing that the Youth Employment Agency is the only source, because he refers to it in that way. I am afraid that my motion, whether it was phrased wrongly or not, is a wider contribution in the context of this overall and very desperate problem facing the community. For that reason I have to say at the outset that the Minister is very clearly a young man, and a man who obviously has a bright political future ahead of him. But if his prospects of retaining his job are enshrined in his speech, then I am afraid no matter what his capacity is, he is going to join this long queue.
He might come in here.
I do not want to treat this matter frivolously because it is far too serious, but I put it to him that as far as I am concerned and, I think, many other Senators we are disappointed that the Minister confined his contribution to this narrow range of activities in the provision of youth employment. We are going to have further debates in this House, and arising from the success of this debate in the sense of the numbers of people who have contributed and the sincerity with which they contributed, I am very concerned about this matter and I am going to see that there is a follow-up. There is no point in just having the debate today and having no follow-up. We will invite Minister back at another time to deal with much broader questions than he actually dealt with in the course of this debate. A number of issues were raised. Points were made by Senator Robb with regard to decentralisation. He asked why give more power or more funds to the central executive which has already proved itself incapable and paralytic when it comes to coping with regional and local community demands? We are going back there because that is where the power is at the moment. If we could find a way — and we referred to this in previous debates on other matters — to transfer to the community real power in the decision-making process that affects their own lives, certainly we would support that and we would like to see it.
There was another area that I questioned the Minister on, that is, whether these levies, however harsh and inequitable, are replacing funds from EEC and Exchequer sources. English is a strange language. It can say the same thing in three different ways and somehow or other, I wonder if the Minister has joined an illustrious profession that are able to say the same thing differently and go back and say that it was not said at all, because the simple facts are that while the Minister said it is not being used he then went on to mention the whole range of areas that the levies have been transferred to: State bodies, the Youth Employment Agency, AnCO, CERT, IDA, SFADCo, Údarás na Gaeltachta, the National Rehabilitation Board and the health boards.
With respect, I never suggested that.
"The range of beneficiary organisations" and Government Departments.
That is the European Social Fund.
While the amounts of money being spent on the Youth Employment Agency is substantially greater than it was, it is not anything close to the amounts of money accruing to the State from the 1 per cent levy. The balance is going into the areas I have mentioned or somewhere else. If the Minister wants proof of that, I will come to page 20. If what I am saying is not right I want to put this extract from his speech to the Minister:
I shall confine myself, at this stage, to saying that there would seem to be a strong case to support the view that the question of allocation of levy proceeds is central to underpinning the co-ordination role of the Agency.
If there is a task force set up to deal with these matters, and I am aware of some fairly strong arguments going on between AnCO and the Youth Employment Agency, I am afraid most arguments in this country are sometimes about land, though more often about money, and in this case I think I will be proved right. The more the State uses that levy to fund these crucial areas the less pressure we will be able to put on EEC sources and the less real work we will be able to do with the funds that are provided.
I served as Minister of State and I know what the Department of Finance are like when it comes to getting a grip on matters of this kind. That is why I want to see to the fullest possible extent these funds used exclusively for this overriding consideration. I am not happy that the Minister's answers are in accordance, I am not going to say in accordance with fact, because there are different ways of putting things, and one can argue that all of these funds are actually going to youth training or youth education or youth employment in some shape or form; what I am saying is there were existing schemes prior to the levy. They were being funded by Exchequer sources. These sources were being got from somewhere and now they are being replaced by the levy. That is the point I am making. I do not see any heads shaking and sometimes that means that I am fairly close to being right. I am putting it to the Minister that we want to see a change here.
The Senator should raise his head.
The fundamental point I want to make and the one that I want to conclude on is that we will be coming back here again. I would support Senator McAuliffe on setting up an ad hoc committee. I am loath to talk about another committee but we need one in which people would be actively promoting and wanting to see radical change in this area. If this represents ultimate Government thinking in this regard then we have a long way to go. This motion highlighted a problem but has not succeeded in penetrating the depths of thinking of the Government on this matter. We have to keep on fighting and keep arguing that there is a range of other options which we are going to have to consider in a far more radical and far-seeing way.
With those final words, I would again like to thank everybody for their contributions and let us hope that we will see an improvement in the existing situation. Points were made about society and breakdown in law and order and matters of this kind. We cannot turn a blind eye to these possibilities. At the same time I have confidence in our young people, but this political system and the democratic process must reflect the genuine need for change. Radical changes will be necessary if we are to put the young people in employment for any reasonable length of time. No matter what other schemes are introduced, that must be our overriding consideration. That must be a priority. Let us hope that we all can contribute in all sincerity to the changes that will make that possible in the fairly near future.
Question put and agreed to.
The Seanad adjourned at 9.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 14 July 1983.