Vol. 299 No. 11
I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £3,780,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1977, 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.
On a point of order, I am finding it very difficult to hear the Minister.
It is all the noise behind the Deputy and to his right.
Is any script being circulated?
I am reading from notes.
On a point of order, I thought there was a precedent in this House that when a Minister was introducing an Estimate he circulated a script.
That is not a matter for the Chair. It is essentially a matter for the Minister himself.
The Chair will agree that it is and has been normal to do so.
The Minister without interruption.
Over the entire life time of the employment incentive scheme the cost, as the Dáil is already aware, will be £4.1 million. I think the main components of that scheme are well understood. As the House is aware, we have engaged in an extentsive advertising campaign to ensure that the features of the scheme are well understood——
No, the Minister's features.
——by the employers of the country.
Of course, the Minister has now changed.
The Minister without interruption.
I was making the point that the co-operation of the employers of the country will be essential if the scheme is to be a success because the moneys we are voting here for the purpose this afternoon will remain unused if they do not recruit the workers even at the attractive rates of premia set out by us, that is, the £20 and £10 rates. One of the basic purposes of that advertising campaign was to ensure that employers would be aware of the principal features of the scheme, that they would understand the advantages of participation and that they would answer my appeal that they should co-operate in making the scheme a success. We have defined success for the scheme as the return to work of 11,000 people, 6,000 adults and 5,000 school leavers.
In regard to the prominence and controversy aroused by the advertising campaign—although certain features of that campaign could not appeal to most Deputies of the House—I want to thank members of the Opposition for their assistance in ensuring that it got the prominence I wished it to get and which I believe it was necessary for it to get if the employers of the country were to be aware of the advantages of participating in the scheme.
Details of the scheme have been circulated to Deputies so they are aware of them. I would reiterate that the scheme applies to employers in manufacturing industry and in agriculture, including horticulture. If an employer in those industries increases his work force over the level in the week commencing 10th January, 1977, he will receive premia, provided he takes on eligible workers. A premium of £20 per week is paid in respect of the recruitment of a person 20 years of age or over on 1st January, 1977, who has received unemployment benefit or assistance at some time since June, 1974, and who has been on the live register for the four weeks immediately prior to employment under the scheme. Deputies will recall that under the earlier premium programme premiums were paid only in respect of persons who had received unemployment benefit. Therefore we have extended the scheme to cover those categories in the employment incentive scheme.
In the first week of advertising of the scheme we received from manufacturing industry over 485 inquiries from employers—these inquiries are at present being examined by Department staff—and over 163 in agriculture because, as Deputies will recall we had extended the scope of the scheme into agriculture, giving us a total, in the first week, of 648 inquiries.
In the second week of advertising the promotion campaign netted 721 inquiries from manufacturing industry and close on 300 inquiries from agriculture. The total inquiries received from 8th May to 20th May was 1,206 from manufacturing industry and 434 from agriculture, making a total of 1,640 inquiries. Most reasonable Deputies will accept that, whatever party points may be made about the actual format of the promotion campaign, the campaign has achieved its objective of ensuring that employers are aware of the advantages of the scheme and the importance of their co-operation in the scheme. We have to sift these inquiries now, but the campaign has got off to a very good start towards our objective of getting 11,000 people back to work.
A premium of £20 a week will be paid in respect of a person under 20 years of age on 1st January, 1977, if he has been in receipt of unemployment benefit at some time from June, 1974, and has been on the live register for the four weeks immediately prior to employment under the scheme. It is intended that young people who have lost jobs and redundant apprentices should attract a premium equivalent to that for adult workers. For the first time employers will receive a premium if they recruit school leavers. It has been argued there is discrimination here as between the school leaver and the adult. Workers under £20 with some work experience will be entitled to the larger premium of £20. Most Deputies will accept that the wage rate for the youth is lower than that for the adult and the £10 premium represents a not insignificant sum for prospective employers thinking of taking on young workers.
Crucial to the success of the scheme is the winning of the co-operation of employers, be they manufacturers, agriculturists or horticulturists. If farmers and horticulturists do not respond the money will remain unused. That is why it is necessary to make all prospective employers aware of the scheme and get their consent to participation in the scheme. It is a free country and, if people do not wish to participate, no one will be returned to work as a result of this scheme.
We spent a good deal of time considering the proper description of school leavers who would qualify and we finally decided eligibility would mean that the young person would be under 20 years of age on 1st January, 1977, have left full time education for at least four months, have registered with the National Manpower Service and have had no permanent employment experience. I was disappointed with our experience of the scheme which preceeded this one. It was not similar in all respects. There are certain differences in this scheme in that we have catered for school leavers and for agriculture.
Did not the premium employment programme cover agriculture?
Not fully and that is one of the reasons why there had to be a change. Farmers had to comply with a nine-month period. That condition does not appear in the new scheme. The first scheme did include agriculture but the number of inquiries we have received in one day from agriculture interests in regard to this scheme are away beyond the number we received under the old premium employment programme. There are differences in scope and qualifying provisions and I believe many more farmers will now find it possible to participate in the new scheme. The qualifications requiring a nine-month minimum employment period was a major obstacle and limited the effectiveness of the scheme in the area of agriculture. We have reduced the period now from nine months to three months. The scheme will operate from 28th February, 1977, to 24th February, 1978. Employers will be assured of premium for 24 weeks for additional eligible workers recruited during the currency of the scheme.
In devising the conditions for the new scheme I was conscious of certain criticisms of the earlier scheme made by manufacturing employer interests. The point was made that there was an excessive amount of paperwork before qualification under the scheme could be assured. I have tried as far as possible to respond to these criticisms and I have reduced the records employers will need to keep to enable them to participate in the scheme.
To date there have been in all 1,700 inquiries. I do not think anyone will deny the effectiveness of the advertising campaign designed to promote the advantages of the scheme. Some made the point that they were dissatisfied with what they described as personalising the campaign. I have given the results of the first phase and if the scheme succeeds in putting 11,000 people back to work I shall be well satisfied with that result. The scheme is designed to achieve that target. A reputable advertising agency advised professionally that they considered a personal appeal essential for the success of the campaign in gaining the support of employers and I accepted that professional advice. Listening to some Opposition speakers one gets the impression that they have forgotten the main objective of the project, namely, getting 11,000 people back to work. Instead of doing all they can to help the scheme they have become obsessed with that particular aspect, the least important aspect from the point of view of the overall moneys voted, £4.1 million. It is not always possible legitimately to make such a personal appeal. It is only where it is felt, on the best advice available, that it would assist in getting as much public support for a programme as possible.
Deputies opposite asked if there was any precedent for this in the past. The precedent I mention here is for an advertisement that was not used in the Irish papers but we have a precedent where, presumably on the best advice available from the advertising agency responsible, the Taoiseach of the day accepted the need to have personalised treatment of a change in the country's trading position. I refer to the advertisement under the heading: "A message from the Prime Minister of Ireland, Mr. John Lynch", which appeared in newspapers of January 2nd and 3rd, 1973, in Britain and continental counries including journals like the Financial Times, L'Monde, Telegraph of the Netherlands——
That was entirely different. That is no comparison. Stop your bluffing and talk about the jobs.
I am merely making the point——
The Minister without interruption, please.
The Minister is making an awful hash of it.
I defend the right of the Prime Minister——
That is not a precedent for what you did.
I defend the right of the Prime Minister, Mr. John Lynch, as he is described in this personalised advertisement, published in these journals to accept the advice he then got. The Prime Minister Mr. John Lynch accepted the best advice available to him at that time and allowed his name, signature and photograph to go out in the name of the country in all those journals in those countries. I hasten to add that this advertisement did not appear in any of the Irish newspapers nor am I suggesting that it did.
There was a difference.
My point is that he accepted the advice available to him that some personalisation of an entire country was necessary to publicise a change in the trading position of that country. In the circumstances of the time I think he acted correctly and I think I did the right thing as regards the advice proferred to me by the advertising agency in regard to the promotion of this programme. Quite rightly, the Deputy says that the serious objective remains, the return of 11,000 people to work. I do not pretend their return to work would be the the end of the story. We do not necessarily have anything to exult about in that we are on the way to reducing the present unemployment figure of 100,000 over the next few months but the economy is moving in the right direction. I suggest that when unemployment is dropping to 112,000 it is a move in the right direction. When we shall see it drop over the summer months below 110,000, down to 105,000 and below 100,000, while this is not a matter for exulation it gives grounds for satisfaction that the economy is moving in the right direction. I should be the last to suggest that means the country's unemployment problems have been overcome.
The great task before us over the next ten years will be the provision of something like 35,000 new, sustainable, productive jobs every year. We had this debate repeatedly over the early years of this recession and recently when we have been coming out of it and on to a growth path again, and we come back again and again to the failure of the economy to provide sufficient jobs for those seeking them. We know that failure was masked in the past by the departure of job seekers to Britain. That substitute for jobs at home will not be with us in future and the great challenge of the next few years is how to provide sufficient jobs for the young people in our growing population at home.
I hope that in the next few weeks as this topic is debated by public representatives an element of unreality will not creep in. I trust we shall try to keep this important national debate in true perspective and realise in all humility that the policies pursued up to now, through the 60s and early 70s have failed dismally. To pretend that there is a magic formula to cure unemployment will not fool anybody in that debate. Thirty-five thousand new jobs every year in a free trade environment such as we now as a country exist in, means agreement that costs must be kept down if jobs are to be sustained. We can no longer hide ourselves in de Valera isolation. We are in a free trade area in the European Community. Our goods must compete with foreign goods in the shops of Dublin and the country. If the advantages of being in a free trade area are clear on the agricultural front it might be said they are not equally demonstrable on the industrial front. The constraints imposed by our membership of the Community do not commit us to think of the easy remedies that were, perhaps, available in the years of protected tariffs. Extra jobs can only be sustained in a free trade environment if the goods produced are competitive.
It is clear that those who suggest that I or any other Minister is overcomplacent about the trends in unemployment are making false charges. If I get 11,000 people back to work through the employment incentive scheme, I shall be happy but I certainly shall not have the illusion that the employment problems are significantly reduced. I think this programme will materially assist. The knockers on the unemployment front should look at some concrete, positive things that are being done and this is one of them. Instead of becoming obsessed by the minor question of how an advertisement campaign is conducted, I would prefer to hear Deputies concerned about unemployment debating what institutional changes we require if sufficient employment is to be provided in the future.
As the House is aware, the Government have allocated a further £250,000 to the Department of Labour for the assistance of projects designed to increase job opportunities for young people. With my officials, I have being considering how to use this money to best advantage for young people and the country as a whole. The employment incentive scheme before us will assist in the recruitment of apprentices, and in the re-employment of redundant persons in manufacturing industries and agriculture but it is evident that quite a number of young people outside manufacturing would not be assisted by this scheme. Accordingly, as a first stage in the utilisation of these additional funds, I propose to have a scheme drafted to encourage apprentice recruitment in the trades designated by the national training authority not already covered by the employment incentive scheme. I have decided to have a scheme to encourage apprentice recruitment in AnCO designated trades such as the construction and motor industries not already covered by the employment incentive scheme. It is my intention that employers in these trades will receive an attractive premium in respect of redundant or unemployed apprentices——
On a point of order, may I ask the Minister if it is his intention to carry on with a filibuster from now until the conclusion of the debate?
What the Minister is saying is disgraceful.
It is in line with the guillotine motion. The Minister is indulging in politics and he is making a laughing-stock of this important matter. It is a most disgraceful performance and the Minister should be ashamed of himself.
I am trying to give details of how an extra £250,000 will be utilised.
The Minister should be sensible. That is only peanuts.
Fianna Fáil are proposing to abolish so many taxation measures that they think money is growing on trees. However, I am not over-contemptuous of £250,000 and how it might be spent to help young people.
I am contemptuous of the Minister's mistreatment of the unemployed. However, he will suffer for it on the 15th June or 16th June.
That money will be utilised to encourage apprentice recruitment in the AnCO designated trades, such as the construction and motor industries that are not covered already by the employment incentive scheme. I propose that employers in those sectors will receive premiums for employing redundant apprentices. I hope that details of the scheme will be notified to employers in the next few days.
I am quite happy to make way for Deputy Fitzgerald. I will listen attentively to what he has to say. I should like to add that £500,000 is included in the moneys asked for here and this will go towards the final stages of the old premium employment programme——
It was a failure.
We got 7,000 people back to work under that scheme.
The number was 6,000. The Minister should be honest.
I assure the House we got 7,000 people back to work under the scheme, although I accept that I did not reach the target I set of getting 10,000 people back to work under that programme.
That did not help the people in Dublin North Central.
If the Deputy is talking about the north side of Dublin, I would say that he and the racketeers who supported his party had control over that and every other part of the country for 16 years.
Now it is pinching. The Minister is afraid of campaigning in Dublin North Central because of the failure of the Government——
Although we did not achieve the target of 10,000, at least we ensured that 7,000 people got employment and we are not ashamed of that. We have had more than 1,700 inquiries in the first two weeks of the current campaign and I am confident that we will get the co-operation of the employers in utilising the moneys provided under the scheme thus getting 11,000 people back to work.
Never has a Minister made such a political football of the unemployment situation and the plight of young people as the Minister for Labour has done in a disgraceful way this afternoon. We referred to the employment incentive scheme, a scheme that I hope will reach its target this time. I should like to put a few points on the record first with regard to the scheme, secondly, with regard to unemployment generally and, thirdly, to state that I told him almost two years ago that the premium employment programme would fail to reach its target because of the limitations of the scheme.
The Minister's target was 10,000 jobs and I did not disagree with that. At the same time I said the sky was the limit so far as the target was concerned. There is some significance in the fact that twice in the lifetime of the Dáil two attempts were made to do something about unemployment but both were done within the restrictions of a guillotine motion. The premium employment programme was introduced during the guillotine programme of mid-summer, 1975, and this paltry debate on such an important topic is also being conducted within the restrictions of a guillotine motion. The question must be asked why this is so. It is simply that the Minister for Labour is ashamed of his own performance and that of the Government in this area.
Let me disillusion the Minister in case the euphoria of a general election may carry him away. There is no improvement in the unemployment situation. On the contrary, it is deteriorating seriously and I can produce figures to prove it. May I remind him that in 1975 approximately 92,000 people sat for the intermediate, leaving and group certificate examinations. In 1976 approximately 98,000 people sat for the same three examinations, an increase of 6,000. Next month more than 114,000 people will sit for those examinations, 45,000 sitting for the leaving certificate. The figures speak for themselves.
The Minister referred to a drop in unemployment to the live register since the beginning of the year. For the sake of accuracy may I point out the correct position? On 13th May. 1977, there were nearly 113,000 people unemployed, according to the live register, just 1,000 fewer that at the same date last year. The drop we are talking about is merely a seasonal drop, but because of the forthcoming general election the Minister is trying to convey a different impression to the people.
Let us compare it with the unemployed figure according to the live register on 11th May, 1973. If the Minister wants to make political points I am entitled to do the same. The number unemployed at that date was 66,999, a little more than half of the present figure. Recently on a radio programme Dr. Geary, a distinguished civil servant with long experience in the Central Statistics Office and now connected with the ESRI, was asked a question with regard to this matter. In view of the fact that the majority of school leavers in the last two or three years have not been included in the live register, he was asked how many more job seekers were there in addition to the 113,000 referred to. He said that there were no statistics available and I accept that. In fact, I have pointed out to this House many times that they should be available. However, Dr. Geary's answer was 35,000. Even if we accept his figure—and as a responsible civil servant I am sure it would be a conservative estimate rather than the reverse—we are talking about a minimum of 150,000 people unemployed. To this must be added next month a figure of more than 50,000 young people—the estimated figure is between 54,000 and 55,000. Many young people are repeating their leaving certificate examination this year simply because of the job situation.
I want to quote another figure from the ERSI which belies what the Minister has said. It is the estimate of unemployment in the EEC countries as a percentage of the total workforce. In 1973 our percentage was 7.2, in 1977 it was 14 and the estimate for 1979 is given as 15.8 and for 1980 it is 16.5. The Minister says we are over the worst of it. If he does not realise that the problems still exist and the situation continues to deteriorate, it is a good job the Taoiseach has decided to call an end to this Dáil. I wish the employment incentive scheme every success.
The Labour Party wanted it.
They did because they wanted to run from the 50,000 young people who will come on the employment market from the middle of June onwards. This is why we will have an election at that time and why we are not having an autumn election. The scheme discriminates against young people. It will take time for that scheme to filter down so that employers can draw £10 on behalf of each of those young people. Why did the Minister not follow the French scheme which specifically provides for those young people? Surely they are the people the Government have completely neglected? They have not given unemployment assistance to girl school leavers. In fact, very few boys get it because the means test deprives them of it. I know of a widow's son who was deprived of unemployment assistance.
We have a headline in The Irish Times of 31st January, 1977, reporting factually from the previous night's jamboree somewhere: “O'Leary promises 20,000 jobs by mid-year”. This referred to the Minister for Labour. It stated:
Unemployment currently running at almost 118,000 should drop below 100,000 by the middle of the year.
We are five weeks away from the middle of the year and it is a long way away from that 100,000 figure. That was part of the lead up to the election.
There are groups of young people in the country who are positively tackling this problem and who will not gain any benefit under this scheme. The building and service industries have not been included in the scheme. Two years ago I appealed to the Minister to extend the scheme to those industries because it makes for good economics. If we take the people coming off the live register, who at present number approximately 54,000 in receipt of unemployment benefit, drawing £963,520 per week, the average there is about £20 per person. If we take the scheme operating for a six-months' period the saving to the Exchequer in social welfare payments is approximately £3.1 million. If 6,000 adults are gone back to work the income from the social welfare stamp, omitting any PAYE contributions, is again £1.1 million over a six-month period for those 6,000 people. We are talking about a total of £4.2 million. which is exactly what the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Labour spoke about at budget time. The cost of this scheme is being met by savings and by a direct tax contribution. I believe there is a profit shown in the scheme if I were able to research the kind of income tax contribution that is there. I cannot understand why the Minister did not long ago extend this scheme to cover the service and building industries. It does not matter in what area people are returned to work as long as they are got back to work and we show good economics from the point of view of the Exchequer.
In regard to the advertising campaign I am satisfied that the Minister at last took our advice on the original advertisement he spent so long defending, knowing he was guilty of using it politically to ensure his return to the House from Dublin North Central. He tried to compare it with something the former Taoiseach did abroad where there was no votes for him. He did it for the nation's good whereas the Minister for Labour did it for his own good. He has now changed his point of view and he has a new advertisement which states:
I will be getting £20 per week for every extra person I employ.
An employer is shown in the advertisement.
I believe that private enterprise and young people are deeply concerned about the employment of young people. I believe one of our national dailies will in the very near future launch a scheme and present prizes to give young people the opportunity of developing their entrepeneurial talents. I say well done to that newspaper. I compliment them and wish them well with their scheme. Why are the Government allowing people like that to take the initiative from them and set a headline which they should have set? It has all been part of a vicious political campaign. We had it last week in the Mansion House. There were all sorts of declarations of crushing anybody who opposes the present regime.
What about the Charismatics in Ballsbridge?
They raised their hands in that well known, infamous salute. The opportunity will be given to the people of Ireland in a few weeks to answer that salute and for the second time in the life of this Dáil that conduct at that jamboree will have a good influence from our point of view in sweeping us to a landslide victory in every city, town, village and parish in the country.
While that jamboree was on and despite the promised land of the Minister for Finance we had our genuine trade union people, as quoted in the Sunday Independent of 22nd May, saying that before the year's end the official unemployment figure would be 120,000. I know I have to accept the guillotine which has been drastically imposed for a second time by a Coalition Government on a motion dealing with the creation of employment. I know that you, as an honourable Member of the House, do not like to have to do it. I will not oppose it. On the two occasions the Minister for Labour introduced an employment programme in the House a guillotine has been imposed by the Taoiseach. who was shown on the front page of today's Irish Times carrying a guillotine. I am convinced that, if the Taoiseach had the opportunity, he would guillotine as quickly the general election campaign.
The highest rate of unemployment of all is in the Minister's constituency.
I am putting the question——
We are not opposing the Estimate but we resent the fact that we barely had time to discuss such an important item. It is a disgrace. The Government are going out in typical fashion.
Order.
The only person I heard shouting was Deputy Fitzgerald. I could hear him from upstairs.
The arrogance of the Minister speaks for itself.
It being now 6.30 p.m., I am, in accordance with the Order made by the Dáil yesterday, putting the Question on the Estimate.
