Last week before the debate was adjourned I was dealing with the issue of unemployment and job creation. Since then unemployment has continued to escalate, with the announcement this morning of 600 further job losses in the United Meat Packers Company and possibly another 600 part time job losses. That is particularly devastating at this time of year as the killing season starts, especially in the lamb trade. Yesterday the announcement was made of the loss of 135 jobs from Express Couriers Limited and a decision was made by Dublin Port and Docks Board to liquidate their subsidiary company Dublin Cargo Handling, with the expected loss of 220 jobs. The board will go to the High Court tomorrow to seek liquidation of the company. Allied Irish Banks suspended a further 100 staff yesterday, bringing to 884 the total number suspended in the two weeks since the industrial action began, with 26 AIB branches closed. Therefore, the situation is deteriorating very quickly.
At the same time, the Taoiseach announced the setting up of a job forum at the Ard Fheis, but that proposal seems to be grinding to a halt also. I have no doubt that the number unemployed has risen from 278,000 to 280,000 this week alone. I am certainly looking forward with trepidation to the next announcement of the live register of unemployed which, I have no doubt, will show that the number unemployed is heading towards 300,000. The tragedy of all this is that we have a booming economy. GNP growth rate averages 5 per cent, with an exceptionally high export market and a trade surplus in excess of £2 billion. The country is booming in economic and financial terms but in human terms it is losing, it is deteriorating and people are becoming demoralised. That is the terrible tragedy, the terrible anomaly and the terrible contradiction.
To briefly recap on comments I made previously, we now have 20.8 per cent of the workforce unemployed, double the unemployment average of the rest of the European Community. We now have more long term unemployed than the total number on the live register in 1980. Those statistics, 8.8 per cent long term unemployed compared to 8.1 per cent total unemployment in 1980, make very sad reading because it is almost impossible for the long term unemployed to get meaningful permanent employment. We are virtually writing those people off from a decent livelihood for the rest of their lives.
While the climate is right for job creation and capital investment and while we have a tremendously skilled and educated workforce, good growth, high exports and high profits, nevertheless, we have a depressed labour market. Nowhere is the labour market more depressed than in the nation's capital, Dublin, where, with one-third of the population, we have only about one quarter of the workforce and where the labour market has been deteriorating over the years. Whether that is due to Government policy, to the IDA locating advance factories to try to attract multinational investment outside the capital or whether there are other reasons I am not sure, but the capital city is certainly the black spot of the nation. In inner city areas unemployment levels are extremely high, with 41.73 per cent unemployed in the six unemployment exchanges. This crisis has not been addressed in any policy advanced by the Government. In fact, the Government's only job retention policy seems to be a laissez faire one. In other words, to call in the Examiner then bring in the Receiver and make promises that jobs will be retained. Jobs are not retained because once the Receiver is appointed the assets are sold off, the company is broken up and sold off to the highest bidder, and no priority is given to jobs. It is in that regard that I strongly criticise the Government. It is ironic that at a time when there is a call for a jobs forum on the creation of jobs the only approach on the retention of jobs is a laissez faire one.
In regard to the Secret Service allocation, to coin a phrase, it is hard to know what the Secret Service does in Ireland. As was once asked, is it a contradiction in terms to have an Irish Secret Service and British Intelligence? It is difficult to imagine either of them in operation to any great degree. What does the Irish Secret Service do with the £170,000 it receives? It would be interesting to know whether that is a secret, too. I should like the Minister to give us some indication as to how the money is spent and as to what are the matters of enormous national importance that require a Secret Service fund. What secrets of this nation are being protected?
On the salaries and expenses at the Office of the Attorney General, what has the Attorney General done in regard to the Nicky Kelly case which he has been considering for the past five months? He seems to be very slow in making up his mind on certain matters and very hasty on other issues. It is equally important to exonerate as quickly as possible the good name of somebody who was convicted, served a prison sentence and went on hunger strike as it is to take out an injunction against a 14-year-old girl. Does the Attorney General need five months to deliberate and put together a report on the pardon of Nicky Kelly for the Government? When does he intend to do something about that?
Under the heading of salaries and expenses at the Office of the Ombudsman, a substantial amount, £876,000, is included for "supply grants". The Office of the Ombudsman is very important and I am delighted it was established, in 1980. One area specifically exempted from the overview of the Ombudsman was the prison service. No prisoner can lodge a complaint with the Ombudsman in relation to any circumstances of his or her detention. When an ombudsman was being appointed as a watchdog for the public in Scandinavian countries, where the idea originated, a major function of that office was to ensure that those in custody had a voice in the outside world to lodge complaints about their detention. To my knowledge, Ireland's is the only country ombudsman that specifically exempts the Department of Justice from its provisions. The terms of the legislation should be extended to include what would be quite normal in any other jurisdiction in the western world.
Under the Estimate for the prison service in excess of £82 million is scheduled to be spent. To my mind, that money is very badly spent. Yesterday morning we read that a young man had died in prison custody on St. Patrick's night. That young man had not been convicted of any offence. Very poor value for money is obtained in the prison service and it is provided at a very high cost. The prison service is not very cost-effective. It does very little in positive terms for those who pass through the system but it seems to do a good deal in negative terms, in damaging somebody. The money is being spent and the taxpayer is being asked for more and more money for the prison service, year in and year out, yet none of the reports commissioned to rationalise and streamline the system are being put in operation. We have been seeking the implementation of the recommendations in the Whitaker report and I have before the House a Bill which provides that sentences of imprisonment shall be imposed only in certain circumstances. It suggests, alternatives to imprisonment, the establishment of a criminal law reform commission to make provision for the rights and living conditions of prisoners; the setting up of a sentence review committee; the fixing of the standard remission at one third and so on. Those measures would improve the efficiency of the prison service. They are included in the report of the Government-established commission of inquiry set up in 1984 and who reported in 1985. That report has been gathering dust on the shelves ever since.
The money is spent, but it is being inefficiently used. Why can we not implement the recommendations that would reduce the cost of the service and improve efficiency? Why has the report on prison suicides, commissioned by the Government as a result of pressure and issued in August last not been implemented? There has been another prison suicide. Seventy per cent of those who have died in prison since 1975 were under the age of 25 — the young man in the most recent case was 19 years old — 74 per cent died by hanging from prison bars in antiquated prison cells. Although it is recommended that specially designed windows be used so that there should be no access to window bars — that recommendation has not been implemented. Sixty-one per cent of those who died, died between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. and 35 per cent were on remand. All who died fell into the category of young unconvicted prisoners incarcerated in antiquated prisons where no steps had been taken to implement the recommendations of the report of the advisory group on prisons. The Government are negligent. Lives are being lost, a prison sentence becomes a death sentence.
Let me give you an idea of a day in the life of a prisoner. The prisoner rises between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., the cell is tidied and the prisoner slops out. There are two prisoners to each cell and 28 cells on each corridor of Mountjoy. Approximately 56 people on each corridor have to slop out into the toilet at the end of the corridor, one after another. They must clean the chamber pot in the wash-hand basin in which they also wash their face and brush their teeth. They then go back to their cells. That takes until 9 a.m. They have breakfast in their cells from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. as no meals are eaten outside the cells. From 10 a.m. to 12 midday, they are realeased for work, if there is work; generally there is no work.
From noon to 2 p.m. is lunch time. They pick up their lunch one after the other and whoever is last gets a cold lunch. They go back to their cells until 2 p.m. From 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. they are again released for work, however there is generally no work. From 4 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. they have tea. They collect it and eat it in their cells. From 5.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. is recreation time. At 7.30 p.m. they are locked up and lights out at 10 p.m. That is a day in the life of a prisoner. It is a meaningless, routine, regime that is mindboggling. Prisoners spend 16 hours a day in a cell, there is nothing positive about that. I want to point out the inefficiency of the system and the waste of so much money. We need to look at the totality of our courts, our prisons and our Judiciary. Over £400 million of taxpayers money is being spent administering justice under the Appropriations Act.
I will now deal with education. There have been a very large cutbacks in education nevertheless the Department will spend more than £1 billion. Despite that large sum of money the percentage spent on education in Europe is much greater. We have the largest class sizes and the lowest per capita spending on education of any EC country. We are the only EC country that does not have a professional training or a national in-service training system in place. The cutbacks in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress have resulted in a reduced level of remedial education. We have reduced the career guidance and counselling services in our schools. We had intended to make progress in that area but due to cutbacks, are left without a counselling or remedial service. The high pupil-teacher ratio has not altered and as I said, it is the highest in Europe. A very large number of our schools are dilapidated and some schools are unhealthy to work in. The Minister knows that a tremendous amount of work needs to be done and a lot of money needs to be spent on primary and second level schools. Because of the drop in numbers attending primary schools, which will result in a drop in demand for second level places, virtually no new schools are being built. I cannot see why that money cannot be diverted to refurbishing dilapidated and unsuitable school accommodation.
It is incredible that there are virtually no clerical or caretaker staff employed in our schools. There is no State funding to employ either a secretary or caretaker in the voluntary secondary sector. Can you imagine any private sector operation, dealing with 300 to 1,000 children and 20 to 100 teachers, that could operate without basic infrastructural administrative services? Most schools do not have clerical support staff, secretaries or caretakers and the proposals in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress to remedy some element of that this year have now been dropped. That is a scandal. I read in today's newspapers that the vocational education committee sector will campaign very strongly against the lack of support systems in education.
The sum of £1.5 million is being provided this year for professional development or in-service training. The OECD was commissioned two years ago by the Minister for Education to examine in-service training in this country. They castigated the lack of any national, in-service training structure, and highlighted the ad hoc type of in-service training arrangements at primary and second level which were out of line with educational development elsewhere in Europe. That is one of the scandals of our system. As a result the CHL report carefully examined the needs of the teaching profession. It demonstrated clearly that we have an aging teaching profession. A teacher spends roughly 40 years in school yet there is no provision to take a single break. Children are becoming more demanding but the teachers are getting older. That is very unsatisfactory on educational, not to mention humanitarian grounds. The levels of stress are increasing. Curricular changes take place all of the time, the children are more demanding as they face the pressure of the points system, yet there is no professional development for teachers.
The Green Paper has not appeared so far. It was agreed in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress that it would appear in spring 1991, the White Paper would follow in the autumn and the legislation would come before the Dáil and Seanad by December 1991. We have no idea when the Green Paper will appear. My view is that the Government have decided not to go ahead with this. They seem to have reneged on this commitment. We are more than a year behind schedule. Are they afraid to come out with a discussion document on Irish education? The Green Paper is long overdue, it was covered in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, but promises were broken in other areas. Is this commitment also going to be broken by the Government? The Dublin Institute of Technology Bill and the Regional Technical Colleges Bill have fallen by the wayside. There is not a word about them or when they will be introduced again.
Education is being put on the back boiler, yet the proposals to reform education are long overdue — as I said before in this House, I am sick and tired of seeing legislation from the Department of Justice but I never see legislation from the Department of Education. One-third of our population, almost one million people, is involved in education as students, not to mention the 40,000 teachers and yet we have not seen either a discussion paper nor legislation on education before the House. We need to make provision for pre-school education, nursery schools, for those in the two to four years age group. We have a constitutional requirement to provide education. We provide primary education but not pre-primary education and, as we all know, that is a very important period in the life of a child. That matter will have to be addressed by the Government and the Department of Education.
The previous Minister for Education made one substantial announcement, that he was proceeding with — and it is about the only thing the Department of Education has proceeded with — means testing for ESF grants. He has put in place the taxing of European money by the Department of Education so that all students going to third level, who would usually receive grants from the European Social Fund, will now be means tested. A promise has been made to review this decision somewhere down the line but the cart had been put before the horse. An inadequately funded or grant-aided system should not be changed until such time as it has been reviewed. I urge the Minister to carry out a review before he stops the funding.
It is unconstitutional of the Government to tax people or take money that has come through for training young people. I do not think they have any choice in this matter. If the City of Dublin vocational education committee or some other vocational education committee college do not take up the case some person who will be affected by the Governments decision may take up the matter because they seem to be in breach of European regulations. We need a general review of third level funding.
The final matter I wish to refer to, which concerns the Department of the Environment, is the scandal of the lack of housing that has grown to crisis proportions.
At present Dublin Corporation are constructing less than 100 houses per annum while we have approximately 1,000 homeless people, 7,000 on the transfer list and 3,000 awaiting allocation. Many people are disadvantaged because of lack of accommodation. The local authority are obliged to provide for those on low incomes or no means, or who are homeless, and they are not in a position to do so. Until 1988, the entire capital funding was provided by the Exchequer but that has stopped. Now 60 per cent must come from the local authority arising out of sales receipts from the selling off of their houses. Their best houses are being sold off with the result that no rents are coming in. The number of people on the housing list is increasing.
The squeeze will be much greater. We will have far more people seeking houses while the local authority have no facilities to help them. Due to a lack of funds maintenance and refurbishment is almost at a standstill. Government grants to local authorities have almost disappeared. Dublin Corporation receive 60,000 complaints per annum in regard to maintenance and most of them cannot be addressed. I was in flats in Mary Aikenhead House, which is 58 years old and I noticed that windows have not been replaced since the flats were built. These windows were rotten. The local authority cannot repair or replace them because they do not have the money. The response of central Government has been simply to cut off funding, to renege on their responsibilities, allow the old housing stock to be sold off and not replace it.
In years to come there will be a housing crisis and we will be back to the street demonstrations of the sixties.
The following statistics give an indication of how bad the situation has become. In 1981 the capital allocation from the Exchequer was £52.5 million which enabled 1,449 houses to be built. In 1982 the capital allocation increased to £76 million and 1,351 houses were built. In 1983 the capital allocation was £70 million and 1,665 houses and 88 flats were built. In 1984 the capital allocation was £60.5 million and 1,431 houses and 286 flats were built. In 1985 the capital allocation was £57.2 million and 1,111 houses and 247 flats were built. In 1986 the capital allocation was £41.6 million and 892 houses and 122 flats were built. In 1987 the reduced allocation of £18.7 million allowed for the building of 332 houses and 122 flats. In 1988 the capital allocation was reduced still further from £18.7 million to £2.75 million when 107 houses and 41 flats were built. In 1989 — incredible though it might seem — the capital allocation was reduced to £1.13 million for the City of Dublin, with a population of one million people. In that year neither a house nor a flat was completed. In 1990 the capital allocation of £2.81 million was made up of internal receipts from the sale of the corporation's houses and produced 25 houses. Last year the number of houses built was 90, this year the number will again be less than 100.
With that type of funding the problem is not just serious, it is critical. The allocation to the Department of the Environment is considerable, over £604 million, and priority is not given to the areas of greatest need. Local authorities, not just the Dublin authorities are starved of Exchequer funding and that should be addressed as a priority.
As Eamon Dunphy might say, "it was not a great year". I would like to see greater focusing on priorities. Projects should be more cost effective. Our prison service, and our education system should be put on a par with our European competitors. We should ensure that consideration is shown for those who do not have a roof over their heads.
