I move:
"That in view of the present serious unemployment position and the certainty that unemployment will increase still further during the winter months, Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should make money immediately available to local authorities for the relief of unemployment."
According to the figures supplies to us by the Government there are at present 40,018 persons registered as unemployed. At the beginning, I should say that this represents a reduction in the registered unemployed compared with a similar period last year or the year before that. However, I do not think that because there has been a slight reduction compared with those two years, the Government should be complacent about the question of unemployment. As a matter of fact, I think they should be concerned about the increase that is even now taking place from week to week. This increase is demonstrated by the fact that in two short weeks there has been a rise in the number of unemployed to the extent of 1,000 persons and, if the figures are to follow the usual trend, this increase of 1,000 per week will continue until some time in the Spring.
The seriousness of the position as far as unemployment is concerned is further demonstrated by the fact that the number of registered unemployed represents six per cent. of the insured persons in the country. Six per cent. is a pretty high percentage and represents four or five times the number of persons who are unemployed in Great Britain. I should say that I do not intend to refer at any length— maybe not at all—to the position in, Great Britain vis-á-vis Ireland, as far as unemployment and employment is concerned, but I do want to impress upon the Parliamentary Secretary that, while we have 40,000 odd unemployed at present, the position will become worse and worse as we go on into winter until, as I said before, we come to the early spring.
Of course, we shall be told this is a seasonal increase, and this has come to be accepted by members of the House as a normal thing. The plain fact remains, however, that there will be an increase in the number of people who cannot find employment, and I should like to demonstrate what this seasonal increase means. I want to refer to the figures for unemployment in August, 1959, and in January, 1960. In August, 1959, there were 45,300 persons registered as unemployed, who were fit for work, who were willing to work, who were available for work and who could not get employment. In January, 1960, that figure had risen to 74,300 persons, representing an increase of 29,000 people. Now, I appreciate that there is a seasonal change in the unemployment figures, but I do not see why we should accept it as being the normal thing, that we should have so many people unemployed, a relatively small number in a particular month of the year and an increase in that number of 20,000, 25,000 or 30,000 five or six months later.
Employment, as all of us would want it to be, is employment for 12 months of the year, and I believe we have far too much of what is described as seasonal employment. Some people are satisfied when they know that a certain number of workers have obtained six, nine or ten months' employment during the year, but the people who find themselves unemployed for one, two, and in some cases six months of the year, must find it pretty hard to live, and I do not think we should be satisfied with the explanation, or retort, that this is seasonal, that we must accept it because it has been accepted down through the years as being seasonal, and that there is nothing abnormal about it.
There has been a note of complacency in the speeches of the Taoiseach during the last few years in regard to the question of employment, and I know that the Parliamentary Secretary, when he speaks in this debate, will tell me there were so many unemployed in 1957, 1956, 1955 and 1954. That may be all right to secure a political point but I am concerned with what the Government are willing to do and can do in order to alleviate the position of tens of thousands of people who will find themselves unemployed in the coming winter months. Certainly I, for one, cannot understand a recent statement of the Taoiseach who said that we now only need 50,000 new jobs. Before he was elected a member of this Government he said that 100,000 jobs were needed, but two or three years afterwards that figure has been cut to 50,000, and where 50,000 people got employment in this country in the meantime I fail to see. From the figures published by the Government themselves, and from my own experience of the country in general, it does not seem to be the case that 50,000 new jobs have been provided.
Again, let me say that while there has been some improvement in the employment position as indicated by the figures, at the same time it seems to me that the number of registered unemployed has been cut by certain devices deliberately employed by the Government and, in that reduction, the Minister for Social Welfare has played a very prominent part. Deputies must admit that in their own constituencies and localities they know well there is a stringent and sometimes unfair application of the regulations by the Minister for Social Welfare to those persons who, in normal circumstances, would qualify for unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance.
The reply from the Minister for Social Welfare or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is: "That is all right. Even though they are not eligible to receive unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance, they may register as being unemployed." But he knows, as I and every Deputy know, that the majority of those who do not receive unemployment benefit or assistance do not register as being unemployed and hope to find employment through the employment exchanges. The plain fact is that, apart from relief workers, there are very few who get employment through the labour exchanges.
The unemployment figures were again cut down by the action of the Minister for Social Welfare in extending the Employment Period Order, thereby depriving many men, particularly those in rural areas, of being eligible for unemployment benefit or assistance during particular months of the year. Again, the majority of those did not bother to register as being unemployed.
The third and most important cause for what seems to be a reduction in the number of registered unemployed is emigration. I see from to-day's Cork Examiner that the Taoiseach, speaking at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce last night, referred at length to the problem of emigration. I shall not say it is the first time he expressed concern about it because that would be an injustice. I notice that in part of his speech he said:
Our concern ought express itself in a more effective way than a futile deploring of the situation and in resolutions calling for somebody else to do something about it, which seems to be the most usual kind of public reference to it.
In other portions of his speech he admits, contrary to what is said by other spokesmen of the Fianna Fáil Party, that emigration is still going on at the same pace as it has been for the past five, ten or fifteen years. The figures published by the Taoiseach's Department indicate that such is the case.
The passenger movement figures, in regard to sea transport only, indicate that net emigration for the year ended June, 1960, was over 40,000. The Taoiseach says that figures are not accurate and that we can only judge the extent of emigration when we have the final figures of the Census of Population which is to be taken some time next year. However, on very many occasions he has quoted figures for emigration on the basis of passenger movement between this country and Great Britain and other countries. The fact is that 40,000 people emigrated in the twelve months ended June, 1960. I do not say all these people were adults or were people who wanted employment, but I do say that the vast majority of them were people who for various reasons, mainly economic, had to leave this country to seek a better living abroad.
The natural increase in the population here is usually reckoned at about 25,000 persons per annum. I do not know whether that has declined or not. However, when one has regard to these two figures, they indicate that the population is declining and declining rapidly. That figure of 40,000 emigrants during the twelve months ended June, 1960, indicates that the number of registered unemployed has been decreased, not by the provision of more jobs by the Government but by the fact that 40,000 of our people had to emigrate to Great Britain or elsewhere. It is admitted that population is the touch-stone of success for any economic policy pursued by this or any other Government. Many reasons are given as to why people emigrate— economic reasons, lack of employment, insecurity. Many people will tell you that the vast majority of those who emigrate need not do so at all. I do not believe that.
There are no statistics to show why people leave this country but we all know from our own experience as public representatives why people leave Donegal, Wexford, Cork, Dublin and, in particular, the western counties. We hear stories about so-and so who left a good job. I know one man who emigrated to Great Britain about two months ago. He had a reasonably good job—he was a vanman—but you could not say he took home a big wage packet every week. His problem was this. He was a man of about 45 years of age. He had six children who were coming to the stage where they had to obtain employment in order that the family might have a decent standard of living. He was required to emigrate because he could not start his children in their first jobs and he had to seek refuge in England to find for his children the opportunities he could not find in Ireland.
Another reason people emigrate is because of the insecurity of many jobs here. The road worker who obtains nine months' employment during the year cannot be said to have a permanent job. He may be able to provide for himself and his family for nine months of the year but it is no consolation for him to be told that for the other three months he can draw unemployment benefit. The rate of unemployment benefit he would obtain, no matter how large a family he had, would not be sufficient to allow him enjoy the standard of living he would have if he had a job for twelve months. In this country we are too prone to think that men should be satisfied when they get some employment during the year. There is a lack of employment for many of those who have been forced to emigrate and who, in turn, have cut down the number of registered unemployed.
I heard the Taoiseach, in speeches before the adjournment of the Dáil for the Summer recess, try to prove that there are more people in employment at the present time than there were a year or two or three or four years ago. As far as we can judge, again from statistics produced by the Taoiseach's Department, there are approximately 50,000 fewer people employed in this country than there were four years ago. It is true that the number employed in transportable goods industries in June last was 3,000 higher than the number so employed in June, 1959. In June, 1959, the number was 155,774; in June, 1960, it was 158,926. There was an improvement of 3,000. The Taoiseach and the Government can take their due meed of credit for that improvement in that sector.
One might say—although not from any statistics recently published— that there has been an increase in the number of building workers compared with last year. I do not think that there has been an increase as compared with four, five or six years ago, but compared with last year, I suppose there has been an increase although I have no figures to substantiate that statement. I think there has been an increase in the number of building workers due to the fact that reasonably generous grants have been given and people have been facilitated, especially in the reconstruction of houses and various improvements to hotels and other buildings.
But if we give credit to the Government for the provision of 3,000 extra jobs in that sector we must refer to the grave decline in employment in other sectors, especially agriculture. Again there is no point in saying that this is a transitional stage, that people all over Europe and the world are leaving the land, that according as machinery is introduced there is less work for men. That is not a solution to the problem.
