We will move on to the next group, which is the Irish Hotels Federation. I ask Mr. William Power, the president of the organisation, to make his presentation and to introduce the people accompanying him. I allowed Mr. Allen a little extra time because, in a sense, the next groups will have much in common. It was right to give Mr. Allen extra time and we will come back to him later. Perhaps Mr. Power could make his presentation in five to seven minutes. I thank him for sending in his observations beforehand.
Presentation by Irish Hotels Federation.
I am accompanied by Ms Anne O'Carroll, the manager of our human resources area, and Mr. John Power, the permanent chief executive of the organisation.
Our federation represents the guesthouses and hotels of Ireland. We give employment to 57,000 people currently. This figure has gone up in the last five years from 35,000, an increase of 22,000 in what is an indigenous industry. It is important to bring to the committee's attention that 80% of the hotels in Ireland have less than 40 bedrooms. The industry is diversely spread over the country and is very important in terms of rural employment. The predominant hotels are family run and 25% of them are based in the south west of Ireland.
There is an important social factor in that a great many of our hotels create employment in small towns and villages in rural areas. This is an opportunity that other industries perhaps do not afford to people in terms of employment. We are, therefore, ideally placed to take up some of the fall off in employment in agriculture throughout the country. We are also in a position to offer very flexible, part-time situations which suit many people in rural areas or people who have domestic commitments but wish to work.
We particularly commend the industry's training authority, CERT, on the multi-skills courses it started during 1999 in the Curragh and Killmallock, County Limerick. They provide training on a flexible part-time basis to allow participants to combine training with family responsibilities. It is planned to extend this course to 15 centres in 2000 and to provide training for up to 500 women.
We stated in our submission which we made to the committee that at 58% Ireland has the lowest female participation rate in the workforce in the 35-54 years age group in comparison to countries in northern Europe. This is an important distinction from the statistics we got earlier. We are talking in terms of the more mature age group which is ideally suited to our industry. We are also talking about comparisons to northern Europe, for example, the figure in the UK is 75% and in Finland and Sweden, 85% of the female workforce at that level is in employment.
We believe that the contributors to the low level of participation are the tax and social welfare disincentives to work and the high prohibitive costs of child care facilities. We stated in our pre-budget submission for the last two years to the Department of Finance that a special homemakers revenue job assist allowance should be made available for those in that age group who chose to return and who have not been in the workplace for the previous five years. We believe that an additional £2,000 per annum in the personal allowance for the first three years would encourage an additional 30,000 female workers to return to the workplace.
We welcome very much the commitment in the Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness to an increase in the number of child care places available in both the private and community sectors. However, the cost of availing of such child care facilities in order to allow parents to work outside the home is an issue which will have to be addressed. The Irish Hotels Federation believes that an additional move should be the provision of tax reliefs to cover paid child care costs. In this context, we suggest £80 per week for the first child and £65 per week for each additional child.
The demand for employees far exceeds the number of applicants interested in working and we have had to seek employees from overseas to augment the Irish labour force. Good, secure employment is now available in the hotel industry throughout the country. Pay rates are very competitive and the career prospects are excellent. There is a very good support system in place for those who choose this career. The rates of pay are very high with head chefs earning over £25,000 per annum. The training system is a very important factor in rural areas. Our branches throughout the country report a difficulty in recruiting staff. We are not alone as other industries have a similar story to tell. The establishment of a quality employer programme in conjunction with CERT for arranging roadshows has done a great deal in giving our industry a headstart in bringing young and employed people to good jobs close to where they live.