Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 April 2007
14 Mr. Costello asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the steps he is taking to assist persons who lose their jobs and have particular difficulties finding new employment due to their age but are many years from retirement age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15475/07]
View answerThe full range of services provided by FÁS is available to all unemployed people. In particular, FÁS provides an integrated support service for people being made redundant because of company restructuring or closures. This involves information sessions, skills analysis, training and retraining courses and job placement. In the delivery of these services, FÁS liaises with other relevant agencies such as Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, the city and county enterprise boards and the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
Under Towards 2016, a number of initiatives aimed at workers in vulnerable industries are being undertaken. These include enhanced programmes to upskill the low-skilled and older workers. In addition, a high-level working manufacturing group has been established to review the challenges facing the sector and, having regard to initiatives currently under way, identify any further measures that would help to meet those challenges.
I welcome the members of the Fourth Estate, who have displayed an extraordinary interest in upcoming redundancies. Specifically on the difficulties older people face finding new employment, will the Minister indicate whether FÁS will extend its services to backbench members of his parliamentary party who are likely to find themselves in that circumstance fairly soon after the next election?
Is that an endorsement?
No. I am anxious that the Deputy be redeployed after he exits this Chamber.
I am quite happy doing what I do.
Are the people of Tallaght happy with that?
The Deputy has already secured his place in the other House, so we are not worried about him.
To return to the substance of the Minister's reply, we know from other countries that are suffering from higher levels of unemployment than those in Ireland that we cannot sustain and support an open, competitive economy that is embracing globalisation unless we can offer a sense of security to those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves without a job and in need of the aid and support of FÁS to return to the workplace. In effect, this question is not dissimilar to one asked previously. Will the Minister outline some examples of the work FÁS is doing in this area, as distinct from just describing it? What experience has he had, in his capacity as Minister, of FÁS intervening successfully in the event of job losses in 20-year-old companies, for example, the skills sets of whose employees are of a particular timeframe? What is the real-life experience communicated to the Minister in respect of the efficacy of such intervention by FÁS?
The question relates to the difficulties older people encounter, because of their age, when seeking employment. Evidence suggests there has been an increase in the order of approximately 10% in the employment of older people over recent years. We have had good success in this regard. FÁS intervention through the One Step Up initiative is very much directed at workers in employment. Through the Excellence Through People programme and others, involving both individual companies and sectors, FÁS has had success in upskilling.
One of the most effective training programmes to date, the Skillnet programme, does not involve FÁS. It is industry-led and is very much based on the sector itself identifying gaps, coming together, providing content and delivering a programme to deal with the gaps.
FÁS will expand the One Step Up initiative in the years to come under the national skills strategy. In Dungarvan, FÁS intervened very effectively in respect of the job losses at Waterford Glass. I received detailed accounts of its impact from the regional manager. The recent feedback from Motorola was positive in terms of the FÁS interface with the workers. I hear such stories across the country. Increasingly there will be interaction with those at work, rather than with those who become unemployed.
