I thank you, Sir, for allowing me the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment this grave matter of cutbacks in the Employment Incentive Scheme. It has been repeated by many people on the Government side as well as the Opposition side of the House in this Dáil and the last Dáil that the central economic challenge facing the country is the creation of full employment, the reduction of unemployment and the creation of meaningful jobs.
The previous Minister for Labour, Deputy Michael O'Leary, introduced the employment incentive scheme which has proved to be the single biggest creator of meaningful employment of any Government scheme ever introduced. Jobs created under the Employment Incentive Scheme are meaningful jobs in the private sector. The Minister has indicated that there is an 80 per cent placement after the six months payment of the Employment Incentive Premium has elapsed. There are other schemes which have been introduced by the Minister, some of which have stayed and others have gone. The aggregate of all these schemes does not come near the total number of jobs created in any one year by the Employment Incentive Scheme.
At Question Time today the Minister for Labour indicated that there would be a further cutback in the Employment Incentive Scheme. I use the word further advisedly because the 20 per cent subsidy was fixed by Deputy Michael O'Leary in 1977 and it has not been increased since despite roaring inflation. By keeping it at £20 a week this year on last year's figures alone this means an effective cutback in the region of 16 per cent whatever the rate of inflation is. The Minister said today that he is discontinuing the Employment Incentive Scheme to the bank and insurance sector. It may well be that the motivation for this decision, other than the financial problems which the Government are coping with, is the point made by Deputy Horgan when he queried whether or not the inclusion of the bank and insurance sector by the Minister was merely contributing to increasing their excessive profits. Of course that would be the concern of this House if in part that was the effect of the extension of the employment incentive scheme to the banking sector. If the Government wished to control the profits of the banks and the insurance companies this House would not be averse to it.
This House must be dedicated to meeting the challenge of job creation. Nobody here has to be told that the unemployment register has again taken an upward swing and that the portents for the rest of the year are extremely grave. The spectre of 100,000 people again unemployed haunts the country, yet the scheme that created so many jobs was not expanded to meet inflation and is now afflicted with another cutback by the Government. This, under a Government that promised to give full employment within four years. I wish the Government were living up to their commitment. If the Government followed sounder and saner economic policies we would not be in this situation of having 100,000 people unemployed and we would be approaching an unemployment level of 4 per cent, which economists say is equivalent to full employment.
The decision wheedled out of the Minister is a shameful decision by a government who have bankrupted themselves with anti-social largesse mainly to the very wealthy. Millions of pounds have been spent compensating the investors in the Irish Trust Bank. Millions have been squandered in abolishing wealth tax and in abolishing rates not just on domestic dwellings, which is fair, but on mansions and castles throughout the country while at the same time local authority rents were increased.
There are no extra funds in the kitty for job creation. If the Minister were motivated by a desire to control the profits of the banks and the insurance companies he might be congratulated here, but that is not what he said in his reply today when he said:
Up to the week ended 28 March, 1980 a total of £490,986 has been paid under the employment incentive scheme in respect of the additional employment of 1,320 workers in the banking and insurance sector.
One thousand three hundred and twenty jobs were created for £490,000. That is less than what the IDA say it costs to create a job. In his reply today the Minister also said:
Having regard to the present economic and financial situation, and the need to achieve savings in public expenditure, I have notified participating firms that it is not possible to continue payment of premia to banks and insurance companies.
The Minister singles out banks and insurance companies in the hope that he will get away with it by allowing it to be understood that they are trying to control the profits of banks and insurance companies. All the Minister and the Government are trying to do is penny pinch here and there to try to save themselves from bankruptcy which they have brought upon themselves and the country. It is a shame that this Government have totally abdicated on their promise——
