asked the Minister for Labour if he will make a statement on how single men deprived of unemployment assistance can get work.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Assistance.
20.
Persons ineligible for unemployment assistance as a result of the recent employment period orders are, if they continue to register or re-register for employment with their local employment offices, treated as if they were still in receipt of unemployment assistance for the purpose of submission for work on schemes financed in whole or in part from Central Funds.
Surely the Minister is aware that there is no work available in rural Ireland at the present time, that there is less money available for the ordinary worker in the county council, less money for forestry, less for lands and less for inland fisheries work. Where does the Minister expect these people to get the work?
There have been very strong representations from every area to permit the necessary preferences for work on jobs which obviously are available.
What use is it talking about preferences if the work is not available? Is it not true that there were 70,000 unemployed and looking for work before the Minister made the order? Does the Minister insist now that it is to hell or to England with them? At one time it was to hell or to Connacht. There is a very bleak future facing these people. They cannot even emigrate to England because there are 800,000 unemployed in England. What future is there for them?
That is not in accordance with the facts. The Deputy has made this statement on several occasions here with a view to getting as much propaganda value out of it as possible. As I said before, there is no difference in the situation now as compared with the situation when the inter-Party Government made similar orders at a time when 91,000 were unemployed.
Surely the Minister is aware that under Fianna Fáil there were 145,000 unemployed. The Minister knows that were it not for the St. Vincent de Paul Society and other organisations people would be starving. But the Minister is not interested and the Government are not interested; they are interested only in the racketeers and speculators.