asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the total number of (1) men and (2) women registered as unemployed at the Dublin Unemployment Exchange on the 31st December, 1933 who have been registering at the Unemployment Exchange (1) for six months continuously without securing any employment; (2) for 12 months without securing any employment; (3) for two years without securing any employment; (4) for three years without securing any employment and (5) for more than three years without securing any employment.
Ceistenna-Questions. Oral Answers. - Dublin Unemployed.
The information required by the Deputy is not available and no practicable measures could be taken to obtain it.
Is the Minister aware that there is a large number of people registered at the Dublin Employment Exchange, say for two or three years, who have not succeeded in securing employment or been helped to secure employment in any way?
I have no information to that effect.
Will the Minister make inquiries, and if on making inquiries the Minister finds that that is so will he take into consideration the condition brought about for men who have not been employed for say a year, a year and a half, or two years? Will he take that into consideration in classifying the disabilities that men labour under, when putting them into employment? The Minister has a certain number of headings of classes arranged in a certain order of preference. There is no such heading as length out of employment.
The Deputy is misinformed. One of the prime considerations that enter into the selection of men for work is the period they have been unemployed.
Then apparently that heading is not being taken into consideration in the Dublin Exchange in allotting work to men.
I should be very glad to have information showing that what the Deputy states is correct. If such information is supplied to me in relation to individual cases I will have them examined.
So much is it the case, and so many are the complaints, that the opinion has been spread abroad that in the case of certain people, at any rate, who have been registered a long time there is no chance of getting employment because they do not know the man at the labour exchange.
That is a very serious allegation, and I should like to have it fully investigated.
I think if the Minister inquires he will find that that opinion exists among a fairly large body of men who are registering and not getting any work.
I have no doubt the opinion may exist in the minds of people not fully informed as to the position, but if the fact is that evidence exists which will go to show there is substance for the allegation I shall be glad to have it.
Are there any people who could have more information than the men who attend week after week at the labour exchange?
Would the Deputy let me have the names of such people?