I welcome the Minister back to the House. I call Senator Neville.
Death of Former Member. - Long-Term Unemployment Report: Statements (Resumed).
I too welcome the Minister back to the House. It has been some time since the end of October when we discussed this very important issue. A lot has changed since then and we are now back to discuss this issue more fully. I welcome the report on long term unemployment. I congratulate the National Economic and Social Forum, including two Members of this House, Senator O'Sullivan, the Leader of the Labour Party, and Senator Henry, who were involved in the production of this report.
It is frightening to see that out of 135,000 people who have been out of work for one year, more than 65,000 or 10 per cent have not worked for three years. The problem for the long term unemployed is that employers do not consider them for work before the short term unemployed. There seems to be a bias inherent in the whole employment area against the long term unemployed. People out of work for more than a year have an 80 per cent chance of being unemployed at the end of the following year. It is an indictment of society, and of our attitude to work, that the people who probably need work most — those who have the experience of long term unemployment — do not have an opportunity to work.
It is a feature of long term unemployment that it hits local authority housing areas more severely than others. This pattern is repeated throughout the country. I see this in my local towns in west Limerick and it can be seen as readily in Dublin, Cork and other urban areas. It is stressful to see housing estates which have been established for the ten or 20 years where there are families with children, and four out of five of the heads of household are on long term unemployment. We must look seriously at this issue because there are communities who have no hope of employment and have an acceptance that they will have no future part of the workforce.
The State has a duty to look seriously at this socio-economic problem and the report before the House which we are discussing today points a way forward. Communities like these should not be excluded from paying their full part in society through activity through work. Unemployment is the single most important cause of poverty in Ireland. The State has a special responsibility to the long term unemployed. The Government has a duty to introduce policies and strategies to change the situation at a time when the economy is doing well. It has little effect on the problems of those experiencing long term unemployment and the situation must change. The long term unemployed must share the benefits of the economic prosperity which the economic indicators show we are achieving. The long term unemployed do not see the effects of this and they should. Improvements in the economy must help those most in need of an improvement in their standard of living and life opportunities through work. Our strategies and policies over many years have failed the long term unemployed.
We must have an objective to provide employment opportunities for every citizen who wants to work. Such an objective might appear to many as an impossible and even naive ambition but I do not agree. As the Minister said in October, in the early 1980s when the prophets of doom and gloom said that the finances of this State were in a hopeless state with no prospects of correction, firms decisions were taken by the FitzGerald led Government and by subsequent Governments. The social partners and society recognised the need for such a strong approach to the economy which led to a turnabout in the State's financial position. A similar, singular, firm approach must be taken to tackling long term unemployment and obtaining a solution to this awful problem.
The two approaches which must be taken, as the report sets out, are preventing people from becoming long term unemployed and tackling the problem of placement for them. It is a long term problem; there will be no overnight solution. The programme will be long term and could take a decade or more. However, we must have strategies and targets to achieve that goal.
I welcome the approaches specified in the forum's report. It has identified that today's early school leavers are tomorrow's long term unemployed. We must have polices which produce more jobs in the economy. I welcome the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Deputy Richard Bruton's, recent operational programme for industrial development which will contribute to this end.
Intervention in the education sector has a vital role to play in preventing future long term unemployment. Resources freed up by the falling birth rate must be retargeted at schools in disadvantaged areas, whose pupils are most likely to be affected if the State does not intervene in the cycle of people in these areas leaving school early and entering long term unemployment.
The forum's proposal to introduce a national, comprehensive, locally based employment service available to short term and long term unemployed, as well as the employed and lone parents, is innovative. It will tackle both the prevention and reintegration issues which I already raised. Such a service will act as a mediator between the unemployed and training organisations and link up with local employers. It is proposed to base it on one mediator to 125 unemployed people, and registration would be voluntary.
Such a service must have real options for the unemployed and prepare people to return to productive employment. Its success, or otherwise, will depend on its track record once it is established. It is important for this system to have early successes to show that it works. Careful planning and thinking through the proposals must be done by those responsible — the Minister and the Government.
It is important that strategies be worked out to break down resistance to employing the long term unemployed. I was a personnel manager for many years and I am aware of the resistance of employers, such as corporate bodies, to employing the long term unemployed. There is a feeling that the short term unemployed are more amenable and used to work, and that there is a problem about the long term unemployed in that they are part of a culture which accepts long term unemployment and they will have difficulties going back to work. This is a prejudice that must be overcome.
We must convince employers that the long term unemployed are just as productive as the short term unemployed. We must have training programmes which demonstrate this and which are aimed at the long term unemployed to develop skills which will be available and sought after by employers, many of whom are prejudiced against the long term unemployed. It must become attractive and cost effective to employers to engage people who are long term unemployed.
I welcome the debate and the Minister. The Government must turn the proposals into an operational programme with specific targets to evaluate the success of its intervention.
I, too, welcome the Minister to the House. On this occasion I feel I am playing musical chairs. I find it hard to adjust to speaking from this side of the House but perhaps a little distance will help me to adapt to my new position. However, I know the Minister from another environment and I will have no difficulty speaking to her here. The Minister is most welcome.
I am particularly pleased to speak on this topic. My interest is generated by the fact that I deal with students who are long term unemployed and who are now back in the education system. I am also pleased to contribute because I produced a book —"The Perceptions of the Unemployed of Unemployment"— on which I got my master's degree. It contains all the material and studies the Minister wants on how to handle unemployment; it looks at its causes and remedies. It covers the huge number of studies which have been carried out and addresses where we go from here. There is no doubt that unemployment is a huge problem and we must examine it in the context of when it started, when it got out of control and how we can put some order on it.
In the middle 1970s, when I did my research, the big organisations which employed many people — names with which we all became familiar — closed down. The traditional family began to take on different pursuits. The idea of the father going out to work while the family stayed at home began to disappear. It was the first time we heard words such as "unemployment" and "redundancy". It was also about this time that we all became interested in the video industry and quick food that could be taken home. Our whole lifestyle began to change and a new way of doing things emerged. Unemployment was becoming the keyword, and this was unsettling.
Before we start putting forward solutions we must examine the situation as it stands. The position is horrific and the psychological impact on families, individuals, children and society is enormous in terms of image, identity and role. When we meet a person for the first time, one of their first questions is "What do you do?" One is identified with one's status. If one says "I am a teacher", one is immediately put into a certain lifestyle. There is a huge identity crisis for the individual who is unemployed.
There is an impact on the family and a spouse in such a situation in terms of trying to cope with the family structures. There is an impact on mental health in terms of stresses and strains, to one's self-esteem, one's personal identity and on diet, normal routines and money in terms of wondering if one can go out and get involved in certain activities. The whole way of life changes. Unemployment has a great impact on the family structure and is a threat to the fabric of society. It also leads to a change in the social norms change. We have to ask how we will adapt; we have to ask how we can sort out or overcome this huge problem with new ideas and we have to look for a new agenda.
Change is taking place; the concept of work will never be the same again. The old concept and structure of work — going in at 9 a.m., coming home at 5 p.m. with two or three weeks holidays — is changing. The kind of work we do is changing; the technological era has come and gone. We are now looking at new forms of work structures. We have the contract system; we are questioning whether the idea of the interview for a job is the way forward, if one should be penalised if one does not perform well on the day of the interview when one could be able for the job.
We have to look at all those matters before we introduce structures. Are the ideas of placement and training now appropriate? I deal with these issues and I do not have the answer. I am not saying they are appropriate but we have gone beyond that. We must examine the kind of jobs for which we will train people in the future. What kind of retraining should we provide?
There are skill shortages. In my local authority we looked for people to do jobs like street cleaning on a Saturday afternoon and on a Sunday; we could not get them. The trade unions stopped us, but the job had to be done; we need more people so that we can schedule buses more frequently; old people need to be cared for and we do not have enough people in that area; and we need another child care structure to educate children for a living. The fabric and structure of society has to be looked at in each area.
Where do we go from here? We must have active links with the community and involve people from the community. Adult learning must go hand in hand with school learning, in other words, the adult population and the school population must work together. We have an adult population, a school population and the community, yet they do not at any time dovetail for the overall good and development of society. We must involve the community more; from now on we must acknowledge that the school is the oasis of stability in society.
In 1983 Mr. Tony Watts wrote a book on education, employment and the future of work. He said we must accept that we live in a society in which employment continues to be one of the main sources of status and that identity and income are accepted as another. At the same time, we must also accept that there is a huge percentage of the population denied the basics — a status, an identity and an income.
What do we do? According to Mr. Watts, we must confront this system and the only way we can do so is through education; I agree with him because I have read a lot about this. He says that at this time it is not a question of trying to put people into jobs; rather it is a question of a new education process not alone in skills but in values and attitudes. If we follow that thinking we will go a long way towards helping people adjust to a new way of life. Mr. Watts also talks about undertaking education courses which will reduce the stigma attached to being unemployed and increase one's chances of impressing a potential employer.
Dr. Jim Chamberlain of UCD has written a lot on this subject. He said that school is now becoming "the oasis of stability" because we are in a transition from an insecure family as a result of the breakdown of unemployment and what it does to society and family, and there is a transition and an unease between insecurity in the home and the uncertainty of trying to launch oneself into the job market. The only stability for the person to come into their own is through the school structure.
We are looking at new ideas. I compliment the National Economic and Social Forum for its work. I was present at some of its first sessions; unfortunately I could not attend more often as I had so many other things to do. We can move forward in that area. There are many good things coming out of the forum, particularly in relation to the employment service concept which is coming into being. It is set up in Coolock and on the north side of Dublin, but some elements of the concept do not gel. We do not have an integrated system. We need an outreach centre, not haphazard approaches. If somebody is long term unemployed how do I know that? We must always remember that we are aiming to get the person back into the system. We are looking for a user friendly centre in the local social employment exchanges.
I deal with the unemployed. They are vulnerable people; they are very insecure; they have no confidence; their esteem is so low they are daunted by anybody coming to talk to them. They have the stigma of not being wanted. We need professionals in a user friendly atmosphere who will reach out to these people and try to get them to break the cycle of unemployment. The long term unemployed are in a rut and we must try to get them out of it. I have made a suggestion and I would like to see it looked at again.
We must have a network of agencies who are not working in isolation. FÁS is doing a good job but I would question them about their schemes. The schemes are good but we must look to the new kind of work and the new style of life of the future. We must also take the school as the base in the community; it is becoming the stability centre in the community. We must look at the local enterprise boards that are being set up; they too are working in isolation. We must look at the religious orders and what they are doing in society. We must look at unemployed groups because they are doing a lot of work in their areas. However we are not working together.
When I was doing my research I went to all these agencies and groups and I realised it would have been better had there been one centre where I could have got all the information. For example, when people in a local area collect their unemployment benefit it would be nice if there was a user friendly office It is very important that the number of guidance counsellors is increased. These professionals understand how to deal with psychological problems. If one can get these people thinking again and develop their confidence, I believe this is the way forward. Perhaps there are not enough people with the relevant information dealing with this problem together.
We need a user friendly outreach centre. We also need to involve employers. We have already talked about the current employment service and I congratulate the forum for bringing forward that initiative. We also need all the agencies working together and professionals giving seminars in each locality. That would be my thinking on a regional philosophy. That is the way of the future in dealing with the problem of the long term unemployed. Returning to the education system has had a dramatic effect on the confidence of the long term unemployed. They are now ready to sit their leaving certificate and launch themselves into the jobs market. They may not get a job, but they will no longer feel inadequate and left aside as they did in the last couple of years. They are now meeting people who are in the same boat and they are learning from each another. The return to second chance education is a great opportunity for them. Coupled with the other services out there, we can break this trend and cycle of unemployment.
I welcome the Minister to the House. I also welcome the forum report and I compliment the chairperson, Maureen Gaffney, and the members of the forum on its work and its preparation. The report highlights one of the most serious social problems in our society, namely, long term unemployment. I congratulate Senator Ormonde for her excellent contribution. While I do not have her academic experience on unemployment, nevertheless I have dealt with unemployed people over a long period. It is one of the most difficult problems that faces a public representative.
Indeed, the Minister said in her opening speech that long-term unemployment hits hardest in local authority areas, and this was also touched on by Senator Neville. The Minister also stated that 80 per cent of tenants in local authority houses in the greater Dublin area were families who had no income from employment; the Minister was right. A recent assessment for the rent section of Dublin Corporation shows that 80 per cent of our tenants are on social welfare benefit.
It is important to dwell for a few moments on why the problem has occurred especially in Dublin and other urban areas. During the 1970s employment in Irish owned firms declined by 3,800 people in the Dublin area. During the same period, foreign owned firms increased employment by 230 people. This was because there was a Government policy between the 1950s and the 1970s to direct industrial investment away from the east coast. Taking the entire period since entering the European Community in 1973, employment in Irish and foreign owned industries in the Dublin area has declined by almost 25,000 people. The decline of indigenous employment in the Dublin area was caused by the increasing competitive environment arising out of entry into the EU in 1973 and the changed demand for other industrial products which placed traditional firms in a difficult position.
Many contractors have closed down. The most significant losses occurred in the food, drink, tobacco, textile, clothing, footwear, leather, paper, printing and motor construction industries, but almost every sector of the indigenous industry base was affected. Dublin's legacy of a high proportion of such traditional declining industries represents a distinctive disadvantage.
At the same time, many new emerging firms have tended to locate, as I have said, away from the east coast due to incentives to do so. This movement has resulted in a high proportion of growing industries, like the chemical and metal engineering industries, being established outside the Dublin area. That happened at a particular time in the 1970s and many of the traditional indigenous industries in Dublin were wiped out and nothing was put in their place. Many of those who were employed at that time in Dublin are still long term unemployed; they never got back into employment.
I have outlined the reasons manufacturing employment has declined significantly in the Dublin area over the last two decades. This is a serious concern in Dublin. Efforts to replace declining industries with appropriate alternatives must, therefore, be a central component of economic and social policy as far as Dublin is concerned. With 29 per cent of the population, Dublin has 31 per cent of the national labour force and 34 per cent of national unemployment. Dublin's proportion of national unemployment has consistently been higher than the rest of the country. As I stated previously, much of the manufacturing industry base has been eroded. There are now 80,000 people out of work in Dublin, many of them on long term unemployment. If nothing is done to improve the unemployment situation in Dublin, by 1996 that figure will have reached 105,000 people. For this reason, I welcome this report.
I attended a meeting of the regional council last night. An interesting presentation was made to us by a professor from Trinity College. In his slides, he showed us the decline of employment, which I have mentioned and of which I was aware, but he also referred to another aspect which frightened me — I am sure it is of great interest to the Minister — that is, that the Structural Funds being allocated to Dublin are less than those going to other parts of the country. It is important that Dublin gets its fair share of Structural Funds to make up that gap which has been around since the decline in Dublin's manufacturing base.
It has been my experience in dealing with the unemployed that the longer a person is unemployed the harder it is for them to get back into unemployment. It is a frightening statistic that three out of four people who have been unemployed for at least two years face at least another year of unemployment and it gets progressively worse. That is the challenge. It has also been my experience in dealing with the unemployed that after a lengthy period of unemployment, people have lost the will to work, which is the psychological factor Senator Ormonde was talking about.
I concur with the report's finding, that training and education play an important part in helping the long term unemployed. I am of the view that if a new industry is to be found for a long term unemployment blackspot, the workforce in that area should be trained well in advance of the new industry's opening. It has been my experience in the past that when new industries are found for these areas, few of the local population are employed. Employment comes from other areas. It is important to train the local community in advance of the coming of the new industry to that area.
At this stage, I welcome the statement which was issued recently by the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy De Rossa. He was responding to the latest ERSI paper which shows that those bearing most of the burden of unemployment had very low levels of education attainment. The current risk of being in poverty is very high for those with substantial career unemployment. The Minister said he will continue to develop second chance education initiatives which offer opportunities without the loss of income to unemployed people who leave school early. The vocational training opportunities scheme, the third level education scheme and the back to work allowance will be expanded and the guidance and placement service will be set up at local level with resources from his Department, FAS, the vocational education committees, ICTU and others. He also gave a commitment that a new special employment measure will be established providing job opportunities with a range of different public authorities and agencies, voluntary bodies and private sector employers. This will be targeted at the most disadvantaged areas.
The Minister indicated that these measures were part of a new approach to tackling long term unemployment. New and more imaginative measures are needed to ensure that unemployed people share fully in the benefit of the current economic growth. That point is very important. We have very high unemployment at a time when we have very low interest rates and low inflation and, for the first time, a balanced budget. The unemployed should benefit from these measures.
I concur with the views expressed by some speakers that the impact of redundancy law on long term employment should be reviewed. It has been my experience that a number of people who have long term employment service find it very substantially rewarding to leave their employment and to avail of redundancy packages. While this is their entitlement, nevertheless, there should be some system in place whereby they can be encouraged to invest their redundancy payments in other types of employment.
There is an opening created by the employment enterprise boards. I am heartened, as a member of the County Dublin Enterprise Partnership Board, to see the number of people who are coming forward with ideas to create employment. Some of them have been long term unemployed and I am always sympathetic to their cause. I would not agree with Senator Ormonde that we are dealing in isolation. We deal with the partnership boards and other groups who are interested in the unemployed.
I commend this report. It is only a starting point but it is a step in the right direction. The work put in by the Members of the Oireachtas and the representatives of the social partners has been most important. The report represents a broad consensus of practical measures which have to been taken to overcome the problem of long term unemployment. I look forward to seeing these measures outlined in the forum report implemented as soon as possible.
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá súil agam go bhfeicfimid í sa Teach seo go minic sna blianta atá romhainn mar bíonn rud spéisiúil le rá aici i gconaí.
May I ask a procedural question? I learned a great deal from this discussion and in particular from Senator Ormonde. She spoke from a depth of research and experience which made her contribution uniquely authoritative. Is it possible for her to speak again in this debate? I am only going to speak for a few minutes and if it were possible for me to share my time with her I would gladly do so.
It is not.
That is the worse for ourselves because she could have gone on for some time. I was riveted by her contribution. As I am going to speak briefly and superficially following what we have heard, I welcome the report very much. Its content is very good and its tone is absolutely right. Whatever the virtues of the market may be — they are very considerable in some areas because a certain amount of competition and market stimulus can help us all improve our performance — talking about the long term employed in primarily market terms is to simply misconceive the nature of the problem entirely. The approach adopted in this report, whatever comments on and critiques of individual proposals one might have, is absolutely right and we should build on it.
Unemployment is a very long term problem and its solution will be very long term, as Senator Neville and others have rightly observed. The role of education is central. Getting at the early school leavers is a major challenge. This problem transcends the schools and cannot be solved by them on their own. There is a temptation — one notices it in some of the publications on education as well as in some of the publications on poverty more generally — to subcontract out to schools the problem of coping with poverty, deprivation and the cluster, multiplicity and layers of long-term problems which arise from this. This is not good enough. Schools have a central role to play but this can only be in the context of a total package.
Poverty in this country is primarily a structural problem. Poverty can be found everywhere but the culture of poverty is located very heavily in a fairly small number of particular areas. If that culture is to be properly tackled as distinct from individuals being salvaged here and there from it, we need a total poverty action programme in which the schools have a major part to play and in which the solution to long term unemployment is central. Without solving this problem, poverty will never be adequately tackled. This problem is a crisis. When there is a crisis for long enough, it ceases to be a crisis. Just as once there was an acceptable level of violence in Northern Ireland, we have, I am afraid, nearly reached the stage where for many of us there is an acceptable level of unemployment in Southern Ireland. If we are to overcome the temptation to lapse into that degree of complacency or, at least, a resignation about the problem of unemployment, particularly long term unemployment, we are in for a long haul.
I was particularly taken by references in the report and in some of the contributions to the role played by women in trying to counter the culture of poverty. It is still disproportionately the mother and wife who has to struggle to hold some sort of collectivity and a family together. The majority of the long term unemployed are men and, in many cases, fathers. The temptation to give up, to resign to fatalism and to drop out psychologically is one to which unemployed men, and fathers in particular, are peculiarly vulnerable and an enormous psychological, financial and cultural burden falls on the mother to try to hold the family together in those circumstances. Any way in which their task can be lightened and in which they can be supported is also a contribution to changing the atmosphere and attitude to job seeking among the unemployed directly.
I was interested in the references in the report to the proposals of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors and the 1,000 jobs created under the auspices of that programme. I am no authority on this area and I ask the Minister if the reports in the papers recently about far more than this number applying for these jobs and the degree of success achieved already are correct and if this programme is progressing as or even more successfully than many assumed it would. May 1997 is the date recorded in the report for the final evaluation of this programme. If the programme is recording significant success much earlier than this, we should consider expanding it at an earlier stage rather than waiting for the result of a pilot project to be evaluated two and a half years down the line. This may be a short period in the overall time span which it will take to solve this problem but is very long for those who are now long term unemployed if there are prospects of expanding that programme and if it is as successful as some media reports suggest. A great deal of praise is due to Fr. Seán Healy and Sister Brigid Reynolds for the quality and innovation of the thinking they have brought to trying to solve this problem. No proposal is ever 100 per cent correct, but over the past few years they have been instrumental in pushing back the frontiers of thinking about how we should approach unemployment. Their tenacity and dedication should inspire the rest of us towards resolving the problem in as committed a way.
The analogy has been drawn, both in the report itself and by a number of speakers, between the manner in which the problem of the public finances which plagued us in the late 1970s and early 1980s was resolved, or is on the way to being resolved, and the challenge confronting us on long term unemployment. The way in which the public finances were turned around was a major achievement and I do not want to deny that for one moment. In our culture it was an extraordinary achievement, but the analogy is not quite perfect because the public finances were almost entirely under the control of Government itself and, therefore, governmental willpower was the central issue in turning them around. For once, Government actually had under its control nearly as much as it normally claims to have.
Fundamentally, the issue came back to willpower in that context. Willpower is also absolutely central here, but even with the most committed willpower in the world Government alone certainly cannot solve the problem of long term unemployment. It has to involve a commitment by the community to the value system behind those programmes. Just as I said earlier, that I feared that many of us have now reached a stage where we are thinking in terms of the acceptable level of unemployment, there will be an onus on Government to raise public awareness and consciousness of the priority that ought to attach to this programme because it cannot do everything itself. What it can do itself is to recognise that there are two aspects which cry out from this report, in terms of Government organisation of its own business, that can contribute significantly to the type of approach recommended. The report is emphatic on the importance of local initiatives and the local approach, within a national framework obviously but nevertheless emphasising the importance of local commitment and local energy. While that is crucial, it cannot be confined to activities in that area alone. I am not going to make a speech about empowerment and decentralisation but they are ultimately all part of the same package, the same cast of mind. If the attitude at central governmental level towards empowering local activity — whether it is local government, private or partnership activity — is not genuine, if it simply remains rhetorical, then much of the potential impact of this will be subverted and weakened. We will remain in the realm of rhetoric much longer than necessary.
The second aspect concerns the fact, which arises from what Senator Ormonde and Senator Doyle said — although his emphasis was different — that the required programmes do not fit neatly into any Government Department remit but cut right across a series of departmental activities. It would be sad if turf wars, bureaucratic brawls and all the things we are accustomed to, not only in Government but in every institution in the land, not excluding institutions of higher education, were to impede the achievement of the objectives. There is broad agreement on the objectives and a fair degree of agreement on how one should approach the resolution of them. However, the organisation of the mechanisms and their implementation depends in large measure on the effectiveness of policy measures which in turn cannot be confronted within the existing departmental structures.
We have had aspects of this discussion here before. More and more, the real problems confronting this country defy the institutional structures we devised to try to resolve them in an earlier, less complex and less interlinked age. One of the main problems confronting this Government, or any Government from now on, will be how to reorganise and reorient the activities of public servants, who as individuals are extremely able, to make sure that their energies go primarily into resolving real problems, as distinct from problems that can be slotted into departmental perspectives, rather than extending them, as we all do from time to time, in internal, internecine conflict.
Unemployment levels registered during recent years represent an all-pervasive abnormality which is demoralising families and communities. General unemployment is fast becoming a fact of life which is in danger of becoming accepted as the norm. Neither I nor my party are prepared to countenance the permanent economic and social sidelining of hundreds of thousands of our citizens. The old paraceas have not worked and are not likely to work in the future. The world of work is changing at a rate unimaginable just ten or 20 years ago. By the end of the century fewer than half of all workers are likely to be working in traditional forms of employment.
At this point I should refer to the strategy of rationalisation adopted by employers in the mid-1980s. Their priority, discussed in every forum, was rationalisation — get rid of the employees at all costs. That strategy was never countered and nobody put up a hand to say "Stop. This is leading to a disastrous situation."
Despite the amount expended on computers in much of the industrial sector, we must also have regard to people, even though we know that it is a modern and technological world now. The number of part-time workers, voluntary and involuntary, is growing. Many who would like to avail of part-time work or job sharing have, in the past, been faced with a variety of obstacles and disincentives. The problems of a modern world demand modern and innovative approaches and the programme A Government of Renewal contains a number of innovative policy proposals which will help to tackle unemployment and increase the range of choices available for those wishing to enter or reenter the world of work. It is essential that the task of implementing these proposals should begin in next month's budget.
I particularly welcome the commitment to revitalise public enterprise and the recognition of the dramatic changes facing our State companies. Employment policy must focus not merely on job creation but also on job maintenance. It is vital that our State companies be equipped to deal with the challenges posed by rapid technological changes and the demands of EU membership. During the past decade State companies in Ireland and elsewhere have all too often been viewed as little more than disposable assets to be ploughed up when the economic going gets tough. Our policy towards State companies should be one of commercialisation rather than privatisation. I am glad that this is the route chosen by the Government parties in their programme.
I welcome the commitment to give commercial State bodies a clear commercial mandate and to clarify the financial targets by which their performance will be measured. I also welcome the Government's commitment to indigenous industry. We have learned the painful lesson of over reliance on multinational enterprises which had little or no commitment to the communities in which they operate. The lesson has been learned in terms of jobs lost and communities devastated, and I hope that it will not have to be repeated. The development of industrial clusters will revitalise whole communities and will allow for integrated industrial development. There is, however, a danger that industrial development will by-pass those most in need — the long term unemployed. All too often newly created jobs go to those already in employment or who have been unemployed for just a few months. Why do the long term unemployed remain on the sidelines? The report has done much valuable work in this regard, not only identifying the problems but also suggesting solutions. I am glad that the Government programme borrows from the forum in its commitments to establish an intensive guidance and placement service operated at local level and involving local employers and trade unions.
On a number of occasions since 1981 Cork County Council has raised with Ministers the employment of those receiving unemployment benefit or assistance on road works and general works undertaken by the council and the consequential transfer of funds. The response was that these funds are intended to provide a degree of income and maintenance during periods of involuntary unemployment and that any alteration would involve far reaching legislative changes and would give rise to serious administrative implications.
The local authorities have an abundance of work to be done if a system was devised whereby people could be recruited. The policy statement issued by the council at the time said:
For some time now Cork County Council has been deeply concerned by its inability to provide an acceptable standard of service to the people of County Cork. The most notable reduction in services has been in the upkeep of the road network which was built with substantial investment in previous decades as well as the maintenance of burial grounds and similar operations.
In our own areas we can see where jobs can be provided. Many of these tasks are labour intensive and the basic cause of the decline in maintenance has been the reduction in county council financing which has not kept pace with inflation.
There is a point which must be clarified. Is there an embargo on the employment of extra staff by the council? That question has to be answered by saying if one provides staff, one has to be able to pay for them. However, if there is an embargo, it should be reversed to allow major job creation by the local authorities. This happened in the 1987 to 1988 period when a policy of fiscal rectitude was being followed. Everybody thought it was all over at that point. There was a vast reduction in the number of people employed in local authorities.
While I welcome the work being done by the forum and similar organisations I am conscious of the danger that theory may be substituted for action. The shelves in Government buildings are groaning under the weight of dust covered reports produced by various organisations during recent years. The time has come for these reports to be taken down, re-examined and, where appropriate, acted on.
Ar dtús ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach seo arís. I congratulate Senator Ormonde on the very good book she has written. It is great book which I look forward to reading at a later stage.
Unemployment is a very big problem. We should ask ourselves why it is such a problem. There was never more work to be done in this country. Every county council and corporation could employ 50 to 100 people if the money was made available.
The Minister told us last October that unemployment cost £2.16 billion in 1993. It is costing us much more. The old proverb says that idle hands find mischievous work. There are young unemployed people running around the country and the city. What are they involved in? They are getting up at 4 p.m. and are out on the streets until 4 a.m. and then going home. We have created a system that leads to unemployment in many ways.
I am always quoting my own experience in my village where we have over 90 people employed in six little industries. Anyone travelling on the road from Sligo to Bundoran will see we have the most prosperous village in this country. I welcome the Minister to visit if she ever passes that way. I give her an open invitation and I will show her around.
I still have land and employ people, but I could not build factories today as I did a short 20 years ago. Two men came into me and asked me to provide them with a little factory. I asked them how soon they wanted it and they said they would be ready to start in six weeks. I said I would have one for them and asked how much they wanted. I went into the council the following morning and got planning agreed verbally which one could do then. I got a contractor and had men working in that factory eight weeks later. I could not do that today. I am the same man and have more land but I cannot do it. Planning laws have become very complicated and expensive. One requires various reports on the site which could take up to 12 months and cost anything from £6,000 to £10,000. It cost me nothing when I was starting. That is one matter we must remedy; it cannot go on.
Where factories close and some of the employees want to set up on a smaller scale, they get no State assistance until they have been on the dole for six months. People have said to me that after six months on the dole, the business is gone and the customers have gone elsewhere. If they could start and receive assistance the following week, they would keep a business going and employ a number of people.
I am not pessimistic. I do not believe we should have unemployment. In the city and throughout the country there are fields, rivers and land flooded. Why can we not bring back some of the drainage schemes and introduce more environmental schemes? Why can we not make some of this £2.16 billion available to the local authorities to repair roads which are in a disgraceful condition? We are not trying to employ people.
For years I fought on this issue. "Multinational" was a dirty word and the builders and those creating jobs were the speculators. We spent years abusing them saying they should not be in our society and were a cancer we had to get rid of. They are gone and the result is unemployment. We did away with small contractors because we introduced a new tax system. This affected small industry and contractors employing two or three men. The employment of two or three people here and there in numerous areas creates much work. These people are not in business today because they are operating under the same tax regime as the big organisations and are not capable of coping with this.
I left business because — I cast no aspersions on the travelling community — I worked like the travelling community. The bank manager was my book keeper. I had two little books; I knew who owed me money and I knew those to whom I owed money. I looked at my bank balance and my book keeping was done. I went out to collect a few accounts and just scratched the name out of the book when I got my money. Senator Sherlock has seen the same system in Cork and elsewhere. Today, there is a ream of paper. One has to have PRSI, VAT and so on. Small industries do not have the ability to cope with it.
I agree with Senator Sherlock. One of my famous phrases when I was opposing this was "amalgamation, rationalisation and conglomeration". Those were the buzz words and only big could work. I started small and I was proved right that small industries could play a big part. Small businesses should return to the system whereby one stamped a card. If any of us wanted to employ people in the morning, we could not do it because we would have to register and get a PRSI number. It would cost us too much so we hire a contract man. It is easier to pay him and be done with it. It is not encouraging.
Our education system is also wrong because it is geared towards failure. The buzz phrase on everyone's tongue after examinations is how did he or she do and people will say they failed or they did not get the points. There should be a system so that if one reaches a certain standard, one qualifies for third level education in whatever discipline they are interested in. Places in third level education should not be given on points. Schools were set up with career guidance teachers so that we would no longer try to put, the square peg in the round hole yet, because of a certain points system, people are taking jobs they never wanted. They would have been better in other lines of work, if they had not been pushed in another direction by our system. People will then say they lost because of the interview or some other system, perhaps a lottery system, but at least failure was not the reason they did not get it. We must do away with the word failure among our youth.
Long-term unemployed people over 50 years of age should be given a pension for life because they will not come back into the workforce. We should provide money to ensure this happens.
I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Currie, is successful because there is too much scheming and truancy in this country. Big schools cause this problem. When there were small schools in the towns, cities and in the country, the teacher knew every child in the class. Teachers do not know who is in their classes or in the schools today because the schools are so big. Unless children go to school and are educated and trained, there will be no hope for them. We cannot allow that to happen.
In years gone by, the travellers — or the itinerants and tinkers as they were known when I was a young boy — learned a trade, making cans, etc., when they were knee high. No matter where they worked, everyone was geared to work from a young age. We have got rid of all that. People are no longer learning to work. We must get back to the work ethic, get children back to school and we must spend money at the lower level.
Culliton was right when he said there were two types of education in this country. We have the technical schools, from which I graduated, and the universities. Universities are great for academics and we need them. However, we try to have a school where everyone will be as good as the next, but we are not all the same. I can repair a car or do mechanical work, but I would have a problem if I had to add three or four pages of sums. The technical school catered for people who were good with their hands. This meant they became interested in their work and they started to learn because they wanted to further promote themselves rather than doing exercises in which they had no interest. We must get back to the two types of education.
My school in Grange, County Sligo, and many other technical schools in the country supplied the ESB with electricians, the post office with technicians and many of our hospitals with nurses. However, this new system has created nothing but unemployment and the good children, as I once said on a programme when someone asked me what I would do in a certain case, who can win their way through and get their examinations do not want any assistance because they will manage. It is the weak children who need the most attention because the strong will succeed. We are not giving education to the weakest because our system has moved away from trying to support those people.
We must change our education system. Young people should not be unemployed. During the days of emigration anyone who went to England and got a job in the first couple of days made good, but if they did not, they became involved in the pub crawls and met disaster. That is happening here today. Too many young people are going down the wrong road. They are getting into trouble with the law and are becoming involved in vandalism and drugs.
I often thought it would be a great idea if children, when they reached 16 years of age, were sent into the work-place for two years because that is the university of reality, and then went back to school. They would have a greater appreciation of learning because they would have experienced the work ethic and they would know what they wanted to do. It would make a big difference. Today people are going to school at 25 and 26 years of age. The last year of technical school was a work experience year where students were sent out to do whatever they were good — carpentry and other trades. We have tried to short circuit that with AnCO and FÁS courses, but we are not getting the volume of people into work. Why? If one employs someone today and keeps them for over six months, one must keep them or give them a lump sum to get rid of them. That applies to health boards, county councils, etc. That was not a problem years ago because one could employ someone and keep them at work and if the work ran out they were let go. People accepted that.
There was also a system that where anyone who had 26 stamps in the summer months got double unemployment benefit for the winter. This encouraged people to work and to get jobs because they knew they could stay at home and get double unemployment benefit. Many people of my age group will remember the dole and unemployment benefit; unemployment benefit was twice that of the dole. Our system was geared to encourage people to work and to get better assistance.
If a young girl or boy is living at home, they will only get £15 or £20 a week unemployment assistance. However, if that same boy or girl puts a caravan in the garden, as they are doing in rural Ireland, or gets a flat in town, they will get £65 a week, plus £25 rent subsidy from the health board, which totals £80 a week. Under our present system they are entitled to it. This means that to encourage these people to go out to work an employer would need to pay them £160 a week. They are not worth that to a business starting off. We must give more finance to local authorities. We must also create jobs, develop a work ethic and get rid of the system which is discouraging people, particularly our young people, from working.
I seem to be the only politician in Ireland who does not have a solution to the unemployment problem. It is always easy to pontificate from here or from other public platforms and to say what should be done about unemployment, but the result of such statements is close to 300,000 unemployed. I suppose I am one of the few people who believe there is a conspiracy among politicians and the vested interests against the unemployed and that those who come forward so frequently and so eloquently and who set up so many organisations to counteract it are weeping crocodile tears.
Unemployment is certainly the largest problem in this country. We have confronted it for 20 to 30 years but we have singularly failed either to tackle or to reduce it. This report will not make any great contribution to solving the problem. This is one of a long line of reports; it comes from a forum set up by the last Government to convince the Irish people something was being done about unemployment. Something was being done; a committee was being set up to look at unemployment and make recommendations. It was not the first and certainly will not be the last committee to do such work. Despite the goodwill of many of those who participated, the committee will be judged on its results and it will be impossible to say this report created any jobs.
It did perform a wonderful window dressing job for a Government which could not do anything about the unemployment problem. When this forum was set up we knew the unemployment figures were rising and would continue to rise up. We knew there had been an Oireachtas all-party committee on unemployment which had been a complete and utter failure. Fine Gael had honourably refused to participate in that committee because it was a cosmetic exercise.
It was impossible for that Government, with its new complexion, to set up a similar body. Instead it decided to set up a body containing people who were not Members of the Oireachtas. That is perhaps a noble aim but it might have been better if there had been no Oireachtas Member whatever on this body, because while politicians are good at weeping about unemployment they are manifestly bad at taking action on it.
My first problem with the National Economic and Social Forum is that it is too big. It was established with 49 people to discuss, resolve and make recommendations to solve the problem of long term unemployment. That is an unwieldy and impossible number of people to make decisions or credible recommendations.
That is a great line.
Apparently this was necessary because of the window-dressing; it was necessary to make it look as though action was taking place. The cosmetic reasons behind setting up this body were disastrous. To have a body of politicians sitting in Dublin Castle or Kilmainham, apparently attempting to reach what the last Taoiseach called "a consensus" on unemployment, was unrealistic, absurd and insulting.
Admittedly, for the first time it contained non-political elements. It contained members from what was called "the social partners"— the trade unions, the employers and the farmers. It also contained representatives from what was called "the third strand"— the women's organisations, the unemployed, the disadvantaged, youth, the elderly, people with a disability, environmental interests and academics. How these people and groups were selected is as much a mystery to me as how the Seanad is selected and how people get on to panels for this House.
Be grateful for that.
It is a strange collection of people. However, it was a way of buying the vested interests. One of the worst things that happened on this committee was that on the first day — I am open to correction on that — a member of the Portobello unemployment group came to the meeting at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and was removed for interrupting proceedings. This gave a great symbolic meaning to the event — one of the unemployed, whose fate these grand people were discussing, was not allowed to contribute because he was making too much noise.
They would probably have done the same to anyone else.
He was removed by the gardaí, Senator O'Toole. What is more, this cosmetic exercise contains exactly the same business interests as have already discussed ad nauseam the problems of the unemployed since time immemorial. It also contains the social partners, who have discussed unemployment and reached accord on the subject in various national agreements but have manifestly failed to make a dent in the problem.
One of the difficulties with this form is that many of those participating are not interested in resolving the unemployment problem. They will yield to pressure by giving a little, agreeing to schemes and giving certain amounts of money to resolve the problem. However, the interest of the social partners is to protect their members. The employers will protect business interests; the interests of the trade unions is to protect their members, and exclusively so; and the interests of the farmers are the interests of their members.
They are talking once again about what they will do for the unemployed, when they have done nothing under three programmes for Governments and national agreements. It is unrealistic to expect them to do anything this time either but they portray an image of activity and action. I feel sorry for those who did not sit on the last forum, who did not participate in the Programme for Competitiveness and Work, who are not members of the social partners but on this forum were duped into giving their imprimatur to a system of this sort.
It will not create jobs although it will issue worthy reports. This report's recommendations are unfortunately not new. The main recommendation of this report is the establishment of an employment service unit, a super job agency, which in the words of the report will have to be well-resourced. The forum is talking about subsidising jobs; this may be its mandate and one cannot blame it if that is the case, although it does not make any economic sense. This is admitted elsewhere in the report where a subsidy is mentioned.
If the forum's mandate is, as it says, to eliminate long term unemployment, it is certainly possible to do so by subsidising jobs by throwing taxpayers' money at them. This is reverting to the old days when semi-State bodies were used simply as blotting paper to create jobs. This is the easiest thing in the world to do but it does not create long term jobs; they are only created by producing more goods which the market wants to buy. That is the only way to produce them, bar subsidising them.
It is a great pity that this report has taken the subsidy route. I cannot say I blame the forum because its terms of reference and objectives are singular — simply to create jobs, not to look at the macro-economic or other consequences.
It is unfortunate that we have had so many academics, politicians, economists and other groups looking at unemployment when they do not take a realistic attitude to the unemployment problem. The realistic answer to this problem is that we can do something, certainly at a local level, about unemployment but we cannot simply solve the problem as is the impression given by some people. It is not a problem that is soluble overnight. It is a problem that is fundamentally linked to the structure of our economy and to the problems in the world economy. We are not going to solve it in Ireland by ourselves.
What I object to in these reports and in the cosmetics surrounding these reports is the false hopes which they inject into the population and into the long term unemployed. Politicians through the choreography and cosmetics of these reports, their launch and the surroundings in which they are made, give the deliberate impression of action in resolving a problem which they are not going to resolve and for which they are bankrupt of solutions.
I listened with growing boredom to Senator Ross's comments which were negative as usual: problems without solution, problems attaching to problems and blame everybody in sight — the scatter gun economist's approach to solving the problems of Irish life. He knows that we agree to disagree on these matters. He has reflected poorly on the work of the people on the forum who produced the document.
What attracts me most to this document is the fact that it does not pretend to find solutions; it does not pretend to have all the answers. It has the humility in the final pages to recognise, that for its proposals to be successful, it would require the support of certain groups which I will mention for Senator Ross' information — not that he would listen to anything that might spoil the nature of his arguments and the rant to which he subjected us for the last 15 minutes. The first group whose support is invited is the unemployed and it continues to the trade unions, the community and voluntary sector and employers. That is a realistic approach to the problem. The strategies of approach outlined earlier in the report deal with the macro-economic approach, the identification and intervention strategies in particular, preventing people in the labour market from becoming long term unemployed and getting the long term unemployed and similar groups back into employment. Any rational person can see that this is the approach required.
The people who drew up this report are to be complimented on taking a complex series of proposals and viewpoints which were represented and reflected by the membership of the forum and compiling a document that gives hope. Hope is important. If the problem is approached in that way we can look at the proposals in a balanced manner. I regret the tirade to which the report has been subjected. It is the essence of the lowest form of politics to simply take the scatter gun to everything in sight and to refuse to look at the good and bad and sift through them. There are aspects to the report with which I would take issue. They are not major aspects. There are aspects which I would like to develop, and that is a more progressive way of dealing with it.
The report has made an invaluable contribution in its analysis of the people who are long term unemployed and tying that into the intervention strategies which will be required. I wish to reflect on those strategies for a short period. I am particularly interested in the education area because I wish to discuss the connection between education, the long term unemployed and the qualifications of the long term unemployed. However, before I do so I wish to make another point.
The groups of people represented in drawing up this report, particularly the social partners, can be trusted to reflect positively on their own areas and can also be trusted to get it right. I have been looking at the macro-economic factors and the main economic indicators in Irish life as they have changed since the beginning of the social partnership in 1987. In 1987, if memory serves, we had a debt/GNP ratio of about 138 per cent, unemployment was soaring each quarter, the Exchequer borrowing requirement was in two figures for the first time in the history of the State and inflation and interest rates were at an extraordinarily high level. Since then, through the disciplined approach of the social partners in hammering out three agreements, we have turned those indicators right around to the point where this forum report can be applied to more fertile ground than was the case during the last ten years.
With regard to the debt/GDP ratio, the objective of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work was to have it reduced below 90 per cent by the end of 1996. In fact, the figure is already down to almost 85 per cent and is decreasing. We could find that when it comes to meeting the conditions for convergence under the Maastricht Treaty it is not beyond the wildest expectations that Ireland might be the only State in the European Union which complies with all those conditions. The Exchequer borrowing requirement is below 3 per cent, the debt/GDP ratio is approaching the 65 per cent required by Maastricht and control of inflation and interest rates is a good example for the rest of Europe. However, that is outside the main issue we are discussing today.
I complimented those responsible for drawing up the report on their analysis of the long term unemployed. They make it clear that 48 per cent of the long term unemployed have no qualification beyond primary level, in other words, they do not have a junior certificate or intermediate certificate. That figure has been fairly constant over a number of years. Some time ago I saw the figure quoted as 50 per cent in the economic plan. The figure of 48 per cent is probably the more precise. What does that mean? It means that half of the 290,000 unemployed have no qualification beyond primary education. We must look at that for a number of reasons. It means that these people have been failed by the primary sector and it gives me no joy to make that statement. However, those of us involved in the primary sector have failed them in some way although I am not saying it is the fault of the people working there. I will return to this issue.
In former times these were the people who found employment on assembly lines, in labouring or general operative jobs and in menial work that was freely available but that day is gone. Those jobs are no longer available. What happened last week in Packard was a type of miracle. The Packard workers in effect are competing against the workers of Hungary and Portugal to get into the marketplace. In both countries, and particularly in Portugal which is a member of the European Union, the workers in many cases are barely in the cash economy. Portugal has tried to become competitive and to retain competitiveness by a continuous reduction in wages. This attempt to compete with far eastern wage levels is not going to work. It is an issue that is well reflected in this forum document. It is not the way forward.
There is also another reason. The parents of Ireland today do not aspire to their children having jobs on assembly lines or to having general operative jobs. They want what they call jobs of quality and status in society. It is not therefore simply a kind of ochón ochón over the fact that all the jobs are going to the far east. The reality is that many of the jobs going to the far east, and indeed perhaps eastern Europe, are jobs which the parents of Ireland do not want for their young children growing up as the new generation. We must be aware of that, and it is therefore a question of re-gearing and moving forward.
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that unemployment is 16 per cent, to take an even number. This figure is made up of 8 per cent and 8 per cent, and one of these figures of 8 per cent comprises people with no qualification. I put it to the Minister that, no matter what work the forum does, no matter what levels of training we put in place and no matter what development we see in terms of economic growth, 8 per cent of people are virtually unemployable. Those are hard words to say, but that is the reality. By contrast, the other 8 per cent, who are qualified to some extent, are people who can find employment, given the way employment is looking at present.
What is the difficulty? We must ensure that the problems experienced by the first 8 per cent are, to some extent, wiped out. The only place that this can be done is at primary level. The reality is that if the child fails at primary level, then he or she will not get any value out of post-primary and will never get into an apprenticeship, into third level or into university. The clear line which has come through this document, and countless others, of education, qualification and employment is not something available to them.
If one takes a child who has left primary level and does not have the basics of reading and writing, it is useless to consider putting that young person, at 16 or 17 years of age, into a grand training ambience and providing them with books and literature which they cannot cope with or read. In other words, they may not even be trainable at that stage in the sense that they may not be able to get the value out of the most intense training procedures available.
What is required, as the report says, is early intervention at an early level to ensure that the basics of reading and writing are available to all of our children, and that is where we must begin. In this respect I am pleased to see from recent documentation from the European Parliament that it has taken the same line. Increasingly European consideration of long term unemployment is getting us back down to the fact that before people can be trained, they must be at a level of education where they can avail of the training.
I put it to the Minister that much of the money which has been directed at training at present is being misplaced, because we are trying to train people who do not have the basics of reading and writing. The way to deal with that is by a remedial intervention at primary level and a programme to help those who have numeracy and literacy disfunctions. We also need to meet the needs of people who have problems with literacy and numeracy at an adult level.
There is an even more worrying problem at primary level. One of the things in the document — I stand to be corrected about this — which I would have liked to have seen more of is the distinction between creating employment and gaining employment. All of our strategies should keep that in mind.
The kind of person who has a post-primary degree in nuclear physics, or something like the fluidity of liquids or some narrow area of qualification is qualified in that area only and may not have the flexibility to move beyond that area when technology passes them out. Qualification of people to gain employment is a substantially different approach to the need to train, qualify and educate people for the creation of employment.
With regard to the nature of the people who will create employment, or, in the words of Senator Ross, who will help to create wealth in the economy, if we take the education system as it exists at present, people do well academically at first level and by doing well academically at first level they get onto second level, and by doing well academically at second level they get the points for third level. Such people have always been rewarded for being good academically. They get to third level and begin to concentrate even more on narrow areas of qualification. They are finally qualified in a narrow area. They are the best in the world for six months in that area and they know as much as anybody in the world. What we do not know is if they have the flexibility, adaptability, openness, and professional self-confidence to deal with change in their area. Time and again we find people retreating into the security of the areas that they know best and refusing to open out into another area, or bring further people in with them.
What does that mean? Who are the people who will gain and create employment? This is probably the single most important analysis which we need to undertake. There are going to be people who are leaders, who are articulate and creative, who motivate, calculated risk takers, team builders, team leaders and those who can work co-operatively within a team. Those are the people who are going to create jobs rather than gain jobs.
The simple fact of the matter is that those innovatory talents and aspects of personality cannot be turned on, like turning on a tap, in a person who has just qualified in a post graduate course at third level. Consider the four year old child who will take a blank sheet of paper and cover it with colour and say "That is my art for today", or the ten year old child who will stand in front of a class and say "This is what I think about the green environment", or whatever it is, and put forward a point of view; or consider the child who will be part of the school chess team, or a member of the school debating team or involved in the school dramatics team, or the person who has learned on the sports field perhaps to take risks, make gains and go forward. These are the people who have learned to develop those talents and they are the people who will be able to convince workers to follow them and to convince Governments and banks to have trust in their ideas.
If those talents are not encouraged and developed from the age of four, they will never be developed. Show me the 19 year old undergraduate at college who has never been part of the debating society, who has never found success other than in the academic field, who has the confidence to stand up and argue a point on an issue which is not directly in the area of their of own competence. There are very few. The peer pressure brings uniformity rather than the old approach of developing differences in personalities. This is so important as a way of introducing lateral thinking and development.
Returning to education, the subject areas where we will develop those talents of articulation, of leadership, of risk taking and of creativity are the subjects like art, PE, drama and so on — the subjects that are on the edge of the curriculum, the peripheral areas of the curriculum. They are not the three Rs, and those in industry who consider close relationships with local schools in order to get the three Rs as being the basis and foundation of a developing economy are completely wrong. It does not work.
The people who are just qualified in narrow areas will be good at middle management. They will be good at their job. They might even be good at research and development. That is a big "might", because the innovation tap cannot be turned at age 20 or 21 if we have not given it encouragement and a sense of success at a much earlier age.
In developing the ideas that have been so clearly and cogently put forward in the forum report, we need to take a special note of the kind of people who will be at the client end of what we are trying to deliver. We therefore need to have first, people who have the three Rs, who have the basics of numeracy and literacy so that they can develop in whatever area they go to, and develop onwards. Secondly, we need to have people who are fully and absolutely qualified. Thirdly, we have to recognise that the qualities, including aspects of character, of people who will create employment, who will grow the economy, who will bring us forward and lead a new generation in every aspect of our lives, whether it be politics, social life or industry, will be developed in the peripheral areas of the school curricula. These are the areas in which we also need to invest. An investment in education, parallel with training initiatives and initiatives in industry, is vital for dealing with the long term unemployed.
A Chathaoirligh, in welcoming the Minister to the House I too appreciate the effort that has gone into the work of the National Economic and Social Forum. As stated by the previous speakers, long term unemployment is the greatest curse that the country has at present. I am pleased that another initiative has been put forward by the forum to try to change that situation. The report states that two thirds of the long term unemployed are probably heads of households. One can realise the trauma and disappointment in such households and in the youth of such households in that they do not see what employment can do and what the benefits of employment can be for their family.
In looking at the forum and the detailed recommendations, the central core seems to be the proposed employment service. It states that each mentor will have 125 clients, if that is to be the word. Early work in this regard is a must. While the setting up of such a structure will take a long time, an effort should be made by the relevant Department to ensure that long term unemployed people have their criteria and their curricula vitae put in place. We must go down that road to ensure that those people are given every chance at the earliest opportunity. If, as is suggested in the recommendations, the mentor and the client must meet on a one-to-one basis, one can see from the number of people unemployed and the size of the long term unemployment list the length of time that is going to take, so I ask the Minister in her wisdom to ensure that the curricula vitae of all long term unemployed people are put together in the short term. A parallel system implementing this scheme would mean that the unemployed could be helped in the shortest possible time.
We must also have linkage between all Government Departments to ensure that we make progress. We must have linkage between the career guidance teachers of the local schools where some of these long term unemployed people still have records. We must not have a fragmented effort in this regard because if it is seen that even within one local exchange one mentor is working very well and her fellow mentors are not putting in the same amount of work, this will ensure that the scheme is not successful. We must ensure that there is coordination between the mentors so that where relevant jobs come on line, if a mentor does not have the person to fill that employment, the job is passed on to a fellow mentor or put back into the system in the shortest possible time.
There are many areas where relevant employment seems to be a basic need. There is a need for development in areas such as lone parents, long term illnesses and home helps. Each of us as public representatives has a number of areas within the constituency which need immediate development. I have no doubt that the work of the National Economic and Social Forum will come to fruition but we must ensure that they are given every chance. We must ensure that the Minister for Finance makes finance available to continue this proposal. The forum must be kept in its present form to encourage debate and to continue its efforts to ensure future employdenc ment, not alone for the long term but for the short term unemployed as well.
In wishing the forum well I hope that ideas are brought forward by the different and relevant groups. Many efforts are being made in the resource centres to ensure that employment is given. Many other such organisations must be given every chance to make submissions to the forum and ensure that continued progress is made. Together with everyone else associated with the political and national scene, I hope that because of the work of the forum a major effort will be made and that the results will ensure that the two thirds of the long term unemployed who are heads of households will have employment. Again I wish the forum well, I thank them for their work so far and I hope that progress is made in the short term.
I do not concur with Senator Ross in his criticism of the individuals who worked long and hard to prepare this report. There are respected public representatives on this hard working forum, as well as captains of industry and captains in all walks of life. I know one of the members of the forum, Mr. Phil Flynn, personally. He is very highly respected throughout the community by employers, the trades unions, people who come from the farming community and those in any other walk of life who make a contribution to this economy.
Unemployment is a very difficult subject. It has been the most difficult task to face all Governments over the last number of years. If this problem were as simple as some people maintain it is, it would have been solved long ago and I sympathise with the Minister and the Ministers of State who have been charged with this responsibility. As someone who employs people in considerable numbers, I must say that there should be a sub-committee of this forum appointed to represent the job creators. The job creators are the people who have the knack, skills, determination and the experience of creating employment.
As an employer, I say to the Minister of State here this evening that I wish her well in her new portfolio. I have had great respect for her for a long time, as have her constituents who gave her a massive endorsement in the last general election. It must be a great source of confidence to her, helping her to carry on her duties and to go forward with confidence, because when a person has confidence they can move mountains. It is the very same with this forum report. If these people are confident in the proposals they are putting forward and enhance them by adding, I suggest, this new job creators section for the people who have been giving employment, we can look forward to progress being made on the unemployment list.
The biggest problem at present is twofold in relation to people, especially young people, who need training. At present there is a tremendous pick-up in the construction industry. It is absolutely starved for young carpenters, young plasterers, and young electricians because practically no training has been given in these industries for the past four or five years. Urban renewal schemes in many areas, particularly Dublin, ended on 31 December last. With the pick-up in property purchases and the purchasing of new apartments in urban renewal areas, there was great demand for builders, plasterers and block-layers, in particular, who could not be found. Those who carried on these trades retired happily after making a meaningful contribution, but there was no one in training coming after them. The root cause was that there was no incentive for an employer to take on a young boy or girl and to pay them £80, £100 or more per week to start and also paying 12 per cent employer's levy.
The Minister of State needs to take on this task of giving those creating employment, like Senator Cregan and me, the incentive to train people in the skills that are needed immediately. These skills will not be needed in three or four years, they are needed immediately. I would hazard a guess that 10,000 young people would be employed within the next 30 days if there was a scheme in the forthcoming budget for the construction industry to cater for those people.
There has been great interest in this island since the peace initiative. We are now a friendly destination. Last weekend a major sporting attraction in which the nation was represented took place in the capital. People from the UK came to Ireland without match tickets — about 20,000. It was like the week before Christmas for the taxi drivers in Dublin. One could not get bed and breakfast in this city last weekend. People had to travel as far as Kildare, to Naas, Newbridge and to the Rossnaree Hotel in County Louth; people travelled 40, 50 and 60 miles for accommodation.
This is a great opportunity for those in the tourism industry to create new jobs by training people. I suggest that 5,000 new jobs could be created by April if those in the tourism industry, in hotels and amusement places, did not have to pay this 12 per cent levy. This 12 per cent levy is the difference between expanding a business and making a little profit. People worked in the tourism industry for the past five years to get a net 2 per cent profit. Things are going well, but times have been difficult. This influx of tourists has been a great boost and the State will benefit enormously because they will go out to drink, to the theatre and to the shops. For example, Icelandic people visit this country regularly.
We all know about the massive sums of money which have come from the venture between Aer Lingus and TEAM Aer Lingus in servicing aircraft at Dublin Airport. Millions of pounds have been spent because TEAM Aer Lingus won the concession to service these aircraft.
We have well prepared, motivated and energetic young industrialists. I have confidence in the future of industry. Between 25,000 and 30,000 jobs could be created in new industries if these people did not have to pay this 12 per cent levy if they provided training. I meet trade union officials and captains of industry when I attend conferences and I count myself a personal friend of many of them. I will put my business credibility on the line in this Chamber when I say that one simple move could create 40,000 to 50,000 new jobs immediately.
As regards the Packard Electric industrial dispute, it frightened a lot of people in the trade union movement, in Government and in employment into saying that there was no incentive there for workers who would face long term unemployment. There should be a major gap between the income of those employed and those unemployed. The unemployed are on the breadline until they gain employment. The system needs to be restructured. A married man with two children should earn at least £10,000 per annum — £200 a week — before coming into the tax net. That is the basic amount if one is not to be on the poverty line especially when we take into consideration the fact that a person may need a car to go to his place of employment. If an unemployed person gets £140 per week and £70 for a day's work, or if his wife works for a night, that individual does not contribute, the State loses £140 per week and there is no return. We must encourage people to seek employment and to be happy in their employment. Peace of mind means a lot to everyone — politicians, civil servants, people in the Press Gallery, etc. It would make a difference to one's peace of mind if one knew one could take home £60 to £75 per week extra because one is working. It is dreadful to meet someone who asks what have you taken home this week? The employed person will say they have taken home £180 out of a gross amount of £260; the unemployed person will say they have received almost that amount without working. That is a disincentive. The most important advice for young people is idle minds go to idle work, idle hands go to bad work. That is what happens in an area with high unemployment. The temptation of drugs and falling into bad company is bad for the individual, bad for society and bad for the State.
No Government in the past 27 to 30 years, had such an opportunity to address the unemployment situation meaningfully. The Government will have the full support of all political parties and 90 per cent of the electorate. Such a move will be politically popular and good for the economy. The system is wrong, not the people. I do not blame any Government for what happened because they have all done their best.
I was in America last week, but our enthusiasm for the future was not obvious in the United States, which is supposed to be the number one country in the world. That country is not experiencing the growth which we have enjoyed for the past few years and which, I hope, will continue for the next three to four years. I have not observed this enthusiasm or growth in the United Kingdom, to which I travel every two weeks. We are now a peaceful and friendly country and we should exploit the opportunities which are available to us. We are one of the few countries in Europe whose nearest neighbour is not their biggest tourism contributor. However, I think that is going to change this year and over the next few years.
The Government is enjoying the best balance of payments since the days of Ritchie Ryan and the late George Colley. It has an opportunity to get people back to work, to reduce the numbers on the unemployment register and to inject more money into the economy by ensuring that people get paid for working. The vast majority of people would much prefer to work. If the Government provides employers with incentives, it will reap the rewards.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House and wish her well in her new Department. She has a strong realisation of what is happening with regards to work and she is committed to seeing that we have an opportunity to create more jobs in the long term, irrespective of the area.
I listened to other speakers and Senator Cassidy made very valuable points about the way we are going about creating jobs. I wish to elaborate on that. Over the years, far too much emphasis was put on a particular type of job — high technology jobs for high technology people. I am not involved in high technology employment, quite the opposite, but I worry when I see technology eliminating jobs. For example, in my city certain insurance institutions have gone from being very big employers to very small employers. Centralisation of their equipment through high technology has meant that fewer people are working. This matter is dealt with lightly in the forum's report.
I welcome this forum but we should not always just talk about unemployment, I would like to talk about creating employment. I always say — and I make no apologies for this — that I would gut you for one job; that is how far I would go. It is very important to create even one job especially for the person who gets it, particularly a young person who is interested in just working and is not particular about which area. For far too long, many people did not get such an opportunity; they just want to work. I feel very sad for them.
We always try to create employment. I have listened to Members on all sides over the years talking about the cost of employment. Senator Cassidy is wrong — a person taking home an average of £180 a week has to be earning more than £260 a week because of the 48 per cent tax rate. It has been said that this budget should ensure that the worker goes home with more money. Of course, workers should go home with more, they are the backbone of our society. It is imperative that we recognise that workers, the PAYE sector in particular, should have more take home pay.
It is a sad reflection on us that the Department of Social Welfare is paying out £4 billion a year, £11 million a day. That is hard to believe; not more than five years ago it was £7 million a day and it has now increased by £4 million a day. I never thought I would see that happen. I see people driving taxis who were once managers. They make no apologies for that — they are working and they were prepared to do anything. I had to make representations today for a person who was doing very well in business five months ago but is now looking for the dole. I never thought I would see that.
These matters have to be raised. I am asking the Minister if we are really sincere about this. The forum says we are and that the Minister is very committed. Some people are committed but I would not say they are very committed.
I do not agree with Senator Cassidy. We have seen opportunities in other countries but they were not novel ideas. I see jobs created in other countries which we could do here but we are not doing them. When I ask why I am told it is because of the cost. It costs a great deal to employ a man who is going home even with only £140, which is the minimum. However, the most important thing is that that man is going home with money and is going to work on a Monday morning.
I know there are supplementary grants and benefits. We think that everything possible has been done to create more jobs but that is not so. Employers do not have the motivation to employ more people. A company in Cork which once had 77 workers now has five; it is still there and is making a great deal of money. Another company which employed 127 now employs 42; it is still there and it too is making money. What is happening here? Are the opportunities there for these people to refuse to take on a worker but to make more money? Where are we going? Are we taking money from them in the wrong way? Are they able to take money from us and make more profits without giving anything to us as a people? I do not like that.
I look at the ordinary employer who employs five people and says that he would love to employ another but it would cost him a further £40 or £60 a week which he cannot afford. Then we have the person who is tormented by the idea that he has to pay such amounts of PRSI and PAYE that it does not pay him to employ somebody. The Minister's speech and the forum report spoke about that, but we are not doing enough about it.
The budget cannot sort it out in one fell swoop, and I understand that. However, we can say we are prepared to look at this in the long term. We can tell employers that PRSI, which is about 19.2 per cent plus the 1 per cent levy, will be reduced over a three year period or we can tell them that over a five year period they will be paying 5 per cent less. Why are we not even prepared to say that in the long term?
I do not understand why any Government — and I am prepared to knock any Government, whether we are in Government or not, and I have done it — does not exploit the opportunities in the services area. Senator Cassidy was right when he spoke about tourism. Last Saturday was the proof of that. People came from Britain without tickets for the match because they wanted to come to Ireland. They did not come two years ago, but they have been coming over the last six months because of what has happened in the North.
Unfortunately, we in central Government and in these Houses seem to think that we know it all but we do not. We should listen more to the people who know. I am in what might be regarded as the lowest category of employer. I am in the hot food business. I am very proud of that and I do very well. I employ many people and I would like to employ more. However, it does not pay and there is no incentive to do so. This does not just apply to me because I do not need any more employees. Many people say they do not require any more employees but we would like to take on two more and perhaps extend. However, to do so, there are many questions. There should be less Government intervention and that is what is being asked for in the USA.
There are too many Government structures in regard to employment. The Minister mentioned breaking it down to try to make it easier. I ask her to urgently examine this and to break it down so that there is less Government intervention. It does not help people on the outside who wish to be left alone. People must pay their taxes and everybody should be above board. In the long term it pays to be above board and we should guard against creating a situation where the black economy helps such people. I understand this point because I have spent much time examining it. There are still opportunities for people to say they will do it on the black economy. Many questions are asked of people who are legitimate and it does not help them. They go grey and get old early. They get nervous and lose their motivation. I have seen this happen. They lose their incentive, although they have ideas. I refer to the service area in particular.
The position on the east coast of America is little different to that in Ireland. The climate and opportunities are similar but everything there is relevant to a job. This is not the case in Ireland. I recall speaking to a person there who was a typical American and made a big deal of his job. I will not say what he did, but if he was doing it here people would laugh. They did not laugh at him there, and that is the point. He was a specialist in his field, although I will not say what it was because it might not go down too well. Opportunities are not given to people in Ireland. This was demonstrated last weekend, although I do not want to put it all down to last weekend. I do not see enough opportunities. I do not see Government leaving people alone if they are going about creating jobs, which is a first priority and must be so.
I note spending in Government Departments and semi-State bodies. I note the number of people in training and those on local employment schemes. I motivated this idea in 1985 and pushed for social employment schemes for the long term unemployed when we were in Government. I got it through, thanks to former Deputies Gemma Hussey and Barry Desmond. Unfortunately, there is now an impression that money should be divided and schemes created. There is a massive number of schemes across the country and people are not on the unemployment register, although they are working for only the minimum amount. I disagree with this situation. I urge the Minister to revise the number of people on FÁS schemes. Money spent in these areas is not being spent correctly. The Minister knows it is the case that FÁS areas are not working out. It may sound well in theory but it is not working in practice.
I have a son 16 years old, the youngest of my seven children. He is now in his last two years of school but is too young to complete his final examinations. A transition year has been established and he is out looking for work in local areas. I made a telephone call and got him a job in a company for a couple of weeks as work experience. Other boys in his class are also doing it with him. Two of the four boys we got fixed up came back and said that those two weeks were worth more to them than an entire year in school. I understand their point because I left school very early, probably too early.
Senator O'Toole made a number of important points as regards education, particularly at primary level. It is most important that we get the basics right at primary level for young people. Subsequently, we should ask them what they want to do and consider whether they should be sitting at a desk or working with their hands. Some people learn later than others. I ask the Minister to examine this area. We should not always give the impression that we can tell everybody what to do. Many young people know what they want to do and all young people are very good at something. Irrespective of the child, they are excellent at something. I have great faith in young people and in the educational system. We are very lucky in comparison to other nations. For example, Britain does not stand near us in terms of our education system and our young people.
I get very sad when I think of our young people abroad. I hate to think of them there and that we do not make more use of them here. Unfortunately, in comparison to Ireland, the opportunities they have abroad are better. Unfortunately, the institutions in Ireland, in which we put so much faith, are not prepared to provide them with those opportunities. They are prepared to make profits, rather than employ more. I could name those institutions.
I am reluctant to interrupt the Senator but his time is nearly up.
I have a final few points. We could debate and discuss the way things could be done — and I will push it at my parliamentary party — but we must ensure that the Government gives priority to ensuring that more people are working. It is a serious situation, particularly for young people. There are families where fathers of 40 years old and boys up to 20 years old have never worked. This is a fact. There are fathers and children in the same family who have never worked and I do not like this situation.
The Minister is in good humour this evening. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate and I welcome the Minister to the House. This is a good subject to discuss and any member of a local authority who is in touch with the grassroots could speak for a full day on this topic. However, one does not have much confidence that one will achieve anything in one's contribution.
The Minister has been involved with rural development and examining the regions for a number of years. She knows the position and will not say anything that differs much from the figures which assess the difficulties. I come from a rural area and I ask the Minister to make a stand. She should stop setting up agencies and structures which there is no hope of financing. It is a sheer waste of time. No one should expect that the average man in the country, watching his television, will be enthusiastic about the establishment of a new agency. His first question will be: "What funding is available?"
I am member of the Donegal County Enterprise Partnership Board, about which even I was enthusiastic. I have a report from its meeting last Monday which shows that seven projects were approved and 28 were turned down by an evaluation team appointed by the Minister of State's honourable Minister. We are told there will be very little funding available. That county enterprise board was set up in a blaze of publicity but we are going nowhere with only £0.5 million for County Donegal, which has nearly 40 per cent unemployment. The average person is asking why so little when £4 million was given to the paper mills in Dublin a couple of years ago and millions were given to Irish Steel, TEAM Aer Lingus and Aer Lingus. We bail out another one every year to any amount, £100 million perhaps. But here a a county enterprise board is launched and expected to deliver jobs. There is a meeting between the various agencies and the county manager once a month and seven projects are approved and 28 are not deemed eligible. The average person listening to the announcements of different agencies no longer takes much of it seriously. He concludes that it is only politics and will deliver nothing.
I am not a Minister and I am not going to be one, but most of those who are Ministers and who have responsibility are good people. However, they come to accept that there is a certain pace for performance and they too become complacent. The whole process becomes stuck. We need a Minister who will tackle the problem of unemployment. I suggest that local authorities be given funding. Van loads of money with armed guards are being sent around the country to pay benefits. It is soul destroying and puts people in the position of never working. Those who are working and paying 48 per cent tax watch this and those who are embarrassed to line up at the dole office one day are not embarrassed the next day. They are forced to join the dole queue.
I would like to see a Minister with enough courage to say that there is a problem and that it is intended to solve it. I propose that local authorities be funded and all the agencies be cut out — I refer to LEADER, which gets Interreg funding, the Interreg funding itself for the Border regions and the International Fund for Ireland, which has large amounts of funding. The funding is not directed at the source and there is no better agency than the local authority, which is subject to local government audit. The local authority is being starved of funding when it could provide jobs.
In County Donegal we cannot take on people to cut the hedges in what is a tourist county, or to clean up footpaths or housing estates. We have reached the stage — and it is the same for the whole of the west — where there is no funding to do necessary jobs; yet we see money being pumped down the drain. I am not a union basher, but we see the arrogance of some of the unions having two or three votes to try to squeeze out another concession. If we are serious about jobs then the best way jobs can be provided is through the local authorities. If one contacted any county manager and asked him what jobs he could provide if he were given £1 million or £5 million, he would be able to provide more jobs with that money than any agency. The money would not be squandered; it would not go on consultants or reports; it would go to the source and take people off the dole and put them to work for local authorities.
The social employment scheme is an utter waste of time. It is soul destroying to put somebody on it for a week and then tell them they cannot be on the scheme the next week. Is there anybody who realises what the problem is all about? Is anyone in control at all? One does not need to be a professor to see that the money could be well spent and could give a good return, and one could check on a daily basis where it is going.
Because of lack of funding we have reached the stage in Donegal where we are importing £0.5 million worth of water from the North. We have not got money to develop major lakes and water sources. We are importing road materials — tarmac and what is called "wet mix" for levelling the roads. We have about 20 factories closed down, such as Irish Picture Mouldings in Donegal town and GT Carpets in Killybegs. Apart from Gallaghers of Ardara, we are not baking a loaf of bread — we are importing it. Pat the Baker is bringing it in by the lorry load. As with many other counties we are not getting support for the structures that are in place. It is time for a Minister to take the problem of unemployment by the scruff of the neck. I hope the Minister of State will do it. I hope she will not run with the system and say that she had made strong recommendations and then blame somebody else for not accepting them.
Acting Chairman
I am sure you would like to hear the Minister, Senator.
I have met the Minister several times and I could not find fault with what she said. She came to her position with intentions as good as mine. However, I regret to say she is not able to deliver because she is stuck in the system.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since this debate started on 20 October 1994. It has been an excellent debate and it has been primarily around the National Economic and Social Forum's report No. 4 on ending long term unemployment. As Senator McGowan's contribution would show, it has ranged a lot wider than that report. One thing that is central to the forum's report on long term unemployment is that it shows how it differs from short term unemployment. It demonstrates clearly that a rising economic tide does not lift all boats and that we need to do something special if we are to bring people back in from the margins, people who are long term unemployed or those at risk of dropping over the edge from being short term to becoming long term unemployed with only a 20 per cent chance of ever getting a job. We also need to engage in special action to intervene for those who are at high risk of becoming the long term unemployed of tomorrow, especially those about whom Senator O'Toole spoke, the early school leavers, the people who get little out of their primary education and as a result, drop out of the education system altogether or simply mark time.
Looking at the points made in the forum report puts a new concentration on looking at the totality of the problem and looking at the small scale on which we have been able to date to address the problem of long term unemployment. We have agencies which provide social employment services and offer training, but they have not reached the hard core of the problem. One of the reasons why they have not done this — and this was touched on by Senator Ormonde — is that they may not reach the unemployed. What the forum's report is talking about is a response to long term unemployment that starts with the needs, abilities and wishes of the long term unemployed themselves, rather than the need of the agencies. It is not about turf wars or agencies falling over each other but about starting where the long term unemployed people are, evaluating what they need to provide a bridge back to the world of work and then building that bridge and putting the resources into it.
We now have a unique opportunity to do this because we are in a period of economic boom. We can either see the fruits of that boom go into areas like higher prices and see money go to those who are already comfortably off or we can use it to tackle this problem once and for all. We have a once-off chance to do it now that our economy is going so well. It is important and is a central part of the programme of the incoming Government, as indeed it was a central part of the programme of the outgoing Government, to put long term unemployment on centre stage.
The report of the forum has not gathered dust. A high level task force has been set up, as recommended by the forum itself, to turn the aspirations and ideas of the forum into practical action. That task force has just about finished its job. It will be reporting to Government over the next few weeks and action will then be seen.
Senator Taylor-Quinn wanted to know who was on the task force. It was chaired by the Assistant Secretary in my office, Julie O'Neill, representing also the Departments of the Taoiseach, Enterprise and Employment, Social Welfare, Finance, Education, the Environment, FÁS, ADM and various people involved in community action to provide jobs, such as those from the Ballymun Job Centre, Tallaght Partnership and so on.
Senator Henry wanted to know whether the operational programme on human resources will provide provision for child care in training centres. One of the issues very much highlighted in the forum's report was the need to involve women in the fight against long term unemployment. That operational programme provides money for child care, including the ringfencing of funds amounting to £7.7 million for employment and training courses for women returning to work, training for non-traditional work, management training, training of child care workers and managers, guidance and information initiatives ives for women and child care initiatives to be undertaken by FÁS and the Department of Education. We see very much the involvement of women. Again, the new Government programme commits us to involving either partner in the household, irrespective of who is signing on, to be allowed to take part in community employment programmes.
Senator Daly put great emphasis on the whole issue of guidance and counselling. Indeed, this was also raised by Senator Ormonde and other Senators. It is important, in looking at the status of the long term unemployed, to offer them whatever guidance or counselling that can be available to direct them to appropriate areas that are suitable for their skills, offer them a programme of compensating education opportunities, training, work experience, job placements, work opportunities or to do whatever is needed to bring a person who has lost hope in themselves, who may have left school early and does not have a good level of education or has obsolete skills, to a point where they are readily able to take part in the world of work and where employers are ready to take them on.
There is another job to be done by a local employment service, which is to ask employers to look at the long term unemployed when they are recruiting. At the moment, we have evidence, in terms of the vacancies that come up on the job market, that about 30,000 jobs change hands every month. Few of the vacancies which are capable of being filled by long term unemployed are, in fact, offered to them. That is partly because the long term unemployed have given up hope or maybe need that little extra to help them compete on a level playing field for those jobs. We also need to ask employers to play their part in recruiting from the long term unemployed register to ensure that people are given a chance to cross that bridge back into the world of work.
Some good initiatives have been undertaken, such as the Contact Point Initiative in Coolock and the Ballymun Jobs Centre, where we have successfully been able to persuade local employers, through their involvement with local community groups, local representatives, statutory agencies and local trade unions in a local partnership to take on people who are employment ready from the long term unemployed pool and offer them work. That has been successfully piloted in a number of areas. We would like to see that kind of action taken nationwide.
Senator Doyle and Senator Roche both made comments on the redundancy payments area. Are we selling jobs too cheaply? Are we encouraging people to abandon jobs that will never be replaced? That issue comes under my new area of responsibility in the Department of Enterprise and Employment. I have asked the Department to study it to see how we can balance the rights of workers who lose their jobs to adequate compensation while ensuring that we are not selling jobs to cheaply in our society.
Senator Lee asked if the CMRS pilot job opportunities programme was succeeding. It has recently met its target of 1,000 job places. I gather it took some time to get it up and running, but it appears to be a successful initiative. This is being examined by the task force and is due for evaluation during this year as the initiative gets up and running.
Senator O'Toole said that people who have left school early with no qualifications should now be regarded as virtually unemployable. I do not agree with that and I do not think the forum agrees either. We do not write off anybody who has lost their job. We want to ensure that people who left school early or who currently have no skills that, if an employer wants, can compensate for the education they did not get at an earlier stage and be given a second chance and brought back into the system. Senator O'Toole had important points to make about the areas of innovation and innovationary work and how we produce the entrepreneurs of the future. This is done not only by a narrow view of education but by fostering subjects like art and drama. It is important to have people who are prepared to take risks.
I profoundly disagreed with Senator Ross' contribution, but in a democratic assembly like this, it is his privilege to hold those views and it is important that he would put them. Senator Ross was trying to shoot the messenger and demolish the idea of a forum rather than critically examine the ideas the forum had put on the table. It is important to bring in the democratic politicians and involve them with the social partners and people who have been outside the traditional consultation process in the debate on unemployment. I do not believe that by bringing people together, the ideas are de facto worthless and will not be implemented. It is important to involve, consult and bring people in from the margins, to listen to what they have to say and to bring those ideas to the heart and the mainstream of Government thinking and to implement them. I profoundly disagree with Senator Ross' views on the forum.
The local employment service which the forum recommends is an important part of the solution but it is not the end. It is not enough to offer somebody counselling, training, education and work placement if, at the end of the day, there are not enough jobs to go round. Of course we have to move towards ensuring that this economy can produce as many jobs as possible for its level of economic activity and try to ensure it can increase the level of economic activity so that we can hope to provide work for all of our people. Of course we have to do that but we also have to look — this is a point stressed in many different ways by people talking about local authority employment and social employment — at the scandal of people being offered incomes but not work at a time when there is so much work to be done in our society.
Great changes have been made in the area of community employment. The Government's programme promises that new and innovative approaches to matching the needs of people looking for work and undone work in our society will be explored, evaluated and taken a stage further. We need to constantly evaluate, change and move on rather than fossilise. Senator Lee made good points about not engaging in turf wars and not allowing the institutions to dominate our responses, which must always be geared to what we do for the long term unemployed themselves.
The forum report also puts a great deal of emphasis on education. It does not go into this in detail in terms of recommendations but it is absolutely critical. The report last week from the ESRI showed that youngsters who leave school with no qualifications are five times more likely to be unemployed than those who leave school with leaving certificates. The earlier we intervene in the education system the better — I agree heartily with what Senator O'Toole had to say on this. We must ensure that we do not continue to create new generations of long term unemployed.
The forum's report has been very important and exciting. It is not gathering dust on Government shelves but has been actively worked on with a view to implementation. Initially, it is unlikely to be implemented fully nationwide but its ideas will be refined and put in place so that we build up to what the forum wanted, which is a nationwide network of local employment centres providing real opportunities to break the cycle of long term unemployment and ensure that the rising tide will begin once more to lift the boats.