asked the Minister for Labour if, in view of the serious unemployment crisis in the building and construction industry, he will now extend the employment premium scheme to that industry.
9.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Problem.
8.
asked the Minister for Labour if, in view of the widespread unemployment in the construction industry, he will now consider the inclusion of that industry within the scope of the employment premium scheme.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 9 together.
I have considered fully the question of the inclusion of the construction industry in the premium employment programme and have decided that the programme could not be appropriately extended to apply to that industry.
In view of the fact that the building and construction industry is the one industry which can quickly generate employment and uses home produced products, does the Minister not feel that, when there are more than 117,000 unemployed, any assistance which will put new life into the industry should be provided?
I would like to remind the Deputy of the major assistance given to the industry in the last two budgets. The recent budget provided over £100 million for investment in housing. The previous budgets were also designed to assist the building industry, which is not to say that there is not, as there is in every country at present which is suffering from unemployment, severe recession in the building and construction industry. I would not like to leave the Deputy with the impression that this Government have done nothing to assist the building and construction industry.
The Minister is well aware that to relate sums of money for different years without any reference to spiralling inflation is pure nonsense. Would he agree that with over 25 per cent of building workers unemployed, and with over 8,000 more unemployed at present than there were last year, it is imperative he should include this industry in the scheme?
I can assure the Deputy that we examined it very closely indeed. There were difficulties of a character which made it impossible to introduce the premium employment programme as devised into that industry. There is the great difficulty of inter-firm mobility, the seasonal nature of the industry and the added difficulty of applying a base figure which was the foundation of the programme.
There is the difficulty of introducing that into the construction industry. We have had several meetings with the federation. It is the viewpoint of the people in my Department who have gone into this very deeply, on my instructions, that it would not be possible to introduce the programme into the construction industry.
Has the Minister any idea as to how he might increase the employment in the industry, or reduce the unemployment? There are now 22,000 building workers unemployed. When he speaks of the money provided in the budget for building, does he realise that Dublin Corporation do not yet know how much money they will get for building in the coming year?
The Deputy is injecting new matter into the question.
Would the Minister agree that, despite the very substantial increase in State expenditure provided for housing, there has not, in fact, been any increase in housing output in the past two years?
That is a separate matter.
The Deputy should know it is somewhat of an achievement to have built 25,000 houses every year as the Minister for Local Government has done.
There has not been an increase in housing output in the past two years.
That is a matter for another Minister.
Could the Minister give any indication of how many of the 10,000 jobs have been created under the employment premium scheme?
Almost 5,000.
A Cheann Comhairle, arising out of your remark that the question posed by Deputy Molloy was a matter for another Minister, would you not think the fact that no other Minister is present, and no member of either of the Coalition parties is present——
The Deputy is bringing in irrelevancies.
——defeats the purpose of Question Time and shows the obvious lack of liaison between the Coalition parties?
If the Deputy has not got a relevant question to put he must sit down.
He is making a point of order.
It is not a point of order.
It is a further reneging of responsibility by the Government.
My colleagues have full confidence in me.
Did the Minister say 5,000 jobs were created and he expected 10,000? The whole idea of this scheme was to encourage people to employ people. My experience is that the building industry is one industry in which we could get people employed.
It was designed to assist the manufacturing industry which has been hit during the present recession.
It did not work.
We still have the best months before us.
Would the Minister agree that eight months of the scheme have almost elapsed, which leaves four? Will he agree there is no way in which he can achieve the target of 10,000?
I would not agree.
Why not include the construction industry? There were two reasons for the scheme.
Brief questions, please.
One was to assist the manufacturing industry, as the Minister said, and there was also the more important one of trying to create employment.
I am calling the next question.
A Cheann Comhairle, am I entitled to look for a quorum at Question Time? I should like to highlight the fact that the Minister is alone here and that members of the Cabinet and members of both Government parties think so little of Question Time that they refuse to come in here.
Members of the Cabinet are hard at work.
The results of their labour are not very obvious.
They got a rest from 8.30 p.m. last night.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,