I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £2,250,010 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1975, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Labour, including certain services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain grants-in-aid.
This supplementary estimate has three components: £1 million for the training authority, £1¼ million for payments under the premium employment programme sufficient to launch that programme, and a token amount for salaries and wages which might be necessary under these additional activities.
In the original Estimate for my Department for 1975 there was provision for £4 million for non-capital expenditure by the training authority on industrial training. In view of the evident disimprovement in the employment situation which occurred this year the Government decided to allocate an additional £1 million to the training programme to enable us to increase the number of adult workers taken into training during 1975. I think it was at the opening of the Dundalk training centre in October last year that I made the point that, with the probable worsening in the unemployment situation, the Government would allocate extra funds to training programmes. This is the policy followed in other countries in a similar situation. There is the advantage in following such a policy that one utilises a period of economic slack to invest extra funds in training manpower and improving their skills for a time when the economy can make use of them again.
This means that one transforms the unemployment experience into a time of possible improvement for the individual. At a time of enforced idleness it is right that the State should provide training schemes so that the range of skills of the individuals can be improved. That is a positive view of utilising the unemployment period for the benefit of the individual. Of course there are benefits accruing to the economy in the fact that the bank of skills of the labour force is improved over that period. That briefly is the thinking behind the Government's extra expenditure in this area. That is why we provided the additional £1 million in the January budget for this purpose. The total Exchequer provision of £5 million is an increase of £3 million on the amount provided for the nine-month period to 31st December, 1974.
In our training programme all of this extra £1 million we added on this year to make up an investment of £5 million for direct training is spent, for the most part, in direct training in such areas as bricklaying, welding, mechanical assembly, electronics and light engineering. We have centres throughout the country in Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Shannon, Galway, Sligo and Gweedore.
We have opened up centres recently in Tralee, Ballina, Athlone and Wexford. In all these centres we are concentrating on training the newly unemployed. That extra money in January was designed to assist the position of those who found themselves on the live registry of unemployed recently.
The bulk of that expenditure on direct training qualifies for assistance from the European Social Fund. We anticipate that there will be at least £4 million provided from that source for this aspect of our training programme over this year. That explains the great interest and activity evidenced by my Department in the Social Fund. It explains the frequent meetings we partake in in Brussels because based on the outturn of those meetings are solid benefits accruing to this country. That is why we take a positive and continuing interest in the development of a social policy in Europe which meets our needs and those of other countries of the Community at our stage of development.
The total amount that will be available to the training authority for training schemes in 1975 will be more than £9 million. We expect to spend more than £6 million of that amount on direct training in the areas I mentioned. In this training policy we have a system called "in-company training", and that consists of advising and visiting firms to guide their training programmes and to organise those programmes. In addition, we have an apprentice training element and shortly I hope to announce a new apprenticeship scheme. Our present system of training apprentices is archaic and needs to be updated and put on the same footing as the training programmes of our neighbouring European countries. A report published some time ago set down various options that could be taken in the context of apprentice training. I hope we will be able to announce firm decisions in this area shortly.
We expect that 2,000 more adults will be trained in 1975 as a result of the extra funds voted for this purpose. The majority of these extra trainees will go through the network of permanent training centres. We have also utilised in this period, because the number of trainees we are looking after far exceeds the accommodation capacity at our permanent centres, regional technical colleges and vocational colleges in the summer months as additional centres for training these people. We have also arranged to hire spare training capacity in premises of State bodies and in private firms to enable extra trainees to be taken on.
Of the additional trainees taken on under this programme this year almost 600 will be women. This is an important point. We are all anxious to see that women benefit from the increase in training programmes, and I am happy to report that that is the case. Though women still do not appear to get totally fair opportunities in our training programme we are working to change that situation, partly by changing the hours of training to ensure that married women who wish to return to work may be facilitated in doing so.
In our main centres we hope to give 6,000 adults adequate training in such skills as light engineering and welding. In addition we will provide the usual industrial induction courses we have been running, especially for workers from rural areas. To ensure that they get some acquaintance with industrial practices we have been running in such areas over recent years courses which would introduce potential workers for industrial undertakings from a rural background to industrial practices.
We are training almost twice as many people this year as last year. We visualise that by 1978 we will be catering for an annual through put equal to almost 1 per cent of the total labour force here. we hope to be successfully training 11,500 trainees per year by 1978. That is a minimum target. A recent OECD report came to the conclusion that this 1 per cent appeared to be the general target aimed for by many of the European countries whose training programmes they examined. In our circumstances that figure is a little on the conservative side, because we must recall that prior to 1967 we had no industrial training programme whatever. There is a big backlog of unskilled labour here which these other countries with their longer tradition of a State training service do not have to contend with. This means that our target of 1 per cent is probably not totally adequate to our needs.
We should continue to increase our training capacity, to aim for the kind of figures which have been achieved for training in Sweden and Canada. I have often thought that a country's economic progress has a direct relationship with the skill of its workforce. There is a direct relationship between the money we invest in improving the skills of our workforce and the benefits that accrue to the economy. We have been too prone to invest in physical material properties of economic expansion. To some extent we have overlooked the necessity of a commensurate investment in the human element in that economic process. We have ignored—up to 1967 we totally ignored it—that there is this close connection between the skills of the workforce and the possibility of any economy to produce prosperity for the people.
I am convinced that there are good arguments for a rapid expansion, in the present circumstances of high unemployment, of our training system. While it might be all right in what the economist would be pleased to call a macro-economic sense, to say that it is good to train our workforce to a requisite level of skill and know that this would be a solid boon to the economy at a time when this economy and others would improve, it could be claimed that this is small sympathy for the man or woman who is trained but does not find a job at the end of the training period. However, our record in placement is very high. It might be considered that this record was in some danger of falling at this time of high unemployment. It is fair to say that the record is not as good as it was a year or two ago—when it was more than 80 per cent—but it is something to be proud of that at this time of high unemployment we are still in a position to claim that more than 60 per cent of those trained we manage to find jobs for. This is a high placement record and one which we will continue to aim for whatever the degree of unemployment.
Earlier this year the placement record was not as high, but I am happy to report that it has been improving. Whether this is a small inkling of an upturn of our own economic fortunes one does not know at this stage, but it is an encouraging sign. I emphasise that the extra money will be spent on the newly unemployed. What we are aiming at is to retrain people coming from the declining industries, such as textiles and other traditional industries which do not have an encouraging future regardless of what time the economic upturn may come. Our aim is to bring people from these declining industries into growth industries, to bring them into industries which have a long-term future, industries which, in the conditions of 1976, look like surviving for the remaining years of this century. For example, we want to bring people from textiles and put them into electronics or into such skills as welding, a skill that will be highly important when the development relating to the exploitation of offshore oil and gas becomes a reality—towards the end of next year and in 1977.
Recently I set up an inter-departmental committee for the purpose of ensuring that all the training needs of the labour force that will be required to exploit the off-shore oil and gas finds will be available. It is my intention to ensure that our national training system will provide extra facilities in the Cork area for the training of the personnel that will be required for this development. This committee will study the manpower and training implications of potential off-shore oil and gas finds. We visualise a wide variety of off-shore activity. I have asked them to consider that included in their terms of reference is the action that should be taken to ensure that Irish men and women will be recruited for the jobs that will result from the economic activity associated with these finds. The experience of other countries suggests that if a country is not prepared for such development, that if the work force is not available, the highlyskilled operatives necessary for this industry come from outside the country. Therefore, unless we gear ourselves in this regard, we could find that many of the new jobs would go to nationals of other countries. It is not premature at this stage for us to make preparations for the activities that should begin in less than two years.
Yesterday we discussed the premium employment programme. Deputy Fitzgerald made the point that, because of curtailment of time, we were prevented from going into details of that programme. However, as I indicated to the Deputy, extra time had been offered to the Opposition for discussion of this Bill but I understand from the Whip that that offer was turned down. The main elements in that scheme have been explained already. The scheme is confined to manufacturing industry since that is the area that has been hit most during the current recession. In this Estimate we are seeking funds to launch this programme. I hope to be back in the Dáil early in the next session seeking extra funds for the scheme so as to ensure that the programme achieves the target I have set of bringing back 10,000 people to gainful employment. I do not expect that I will have any difficulty in obtaining the support of Deputies in this regard.
In the short time available to us last evening Deputy Fitzgerald and others raised various points in relation to the scheme. I was asked why the service sector is not included. The inclusion of this sector would involve large administrative problems but, as I have indicated, our priority was manufacturing industry. We did not consider the service sector to be a main call for resources in the light of what we are aiming at. The service sector would include areas which have not been affected significantly in the course of the present recession, areas such as banking and insurance.
I should hope that a subsidiary effect of the programme would be that it would enable employers to maintain their work force intact in the local area. That will be a prime requirement when economic activity quickens once more. At that stage we may find a situation where employers in many areas might have a shortage of workers in their immediate vicinity. If the programme assists local employers in maintaining their work force intact, it will have proved of solid assistance.
The premium employment programme is intended as an incentive to industry to maintain intact work forces that they might not be in a position otherwise to maintain during the remaining months of this recession. Apart from that main objective, the aim is to assist employers, to assist economic activity in local areas in overcoming any delays that might occur in the event of a work force being dispersed at this time.
I was asked, too, whether it was necessary to have a four-week waiting period of unemployment in relation to the programme. I consider it necessary to have this waiting period so as to ensure that there is this genuine category of unemployed for whom the scheme is intended.
The question of flexibility of date was raised, too. The Departmental officials with whom I have kept in close contact have been in touch with employers who claim that the date chosen eliminates some who would like to be included. This type of difficulty is always present when one introduces any scheme. The claim can always be made that the date chosen is arbitrary. It is arbitrary, as it must be. However, we will be making an examination of some of the industries who have made this claim. We will consider their situation very carefully in order to allow us to decide whether we can accede to any request in respect of flexibility of date. However, Deputies will appreciate that a date must be chosen, that the programme must come into operation on a particular date and expire on another.
As well as being through the National Manpower Service we have been in contact with local employers and we will be ensuring that the benefits of this programme will be brought to the knowledge of every appropriate employer in the State. It will require a strong selling programme and I hope we will achieve that.
The last item on this Estimate this morning is for extra salaries for the additional work that may be required in servicing these additional activities. That speaks for itself and I do not wish to comment on it. I thought it best that I should utilise some of the time on this Estimate in answering some of the questions that were raised yesterday evening.
It would be foolish to claim that the premium employment programme is an answer to unemployment in all its aspects as it now exists and as it affects our working population at this time of year. That claim is not being made by us on this side of the House. We simply say of it that it could prove of solid assistance to employers anxious to retain their work force. We had the experience of other countries where similar programmes have been attempted. A good deal of thought has gone into our own programme. We have considered that the area of aid should be confined to manufacturing industry. The point may be made that there are other areas that its benefits could have been extended to, for instance, agriculture. Again there would be a great deal of administrative difficulty involved in extending it to agriculture. It is a question of selection and the areas that have been worst hit by unemployment are manufacturing industries. The prime need now is to ensure that the work force is not dispersed over the remaining months of economic difficulty. The employment programme should assist us in avoiding that occurrence. I commend this Estimate to the House.
