asked the Taoiseach if he will outline the results to date of the Cabinet Task Force on Employment, of which he is chairman.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cabinet Task Force on Employment.
8.
The activities of the Cabinet Task Force on Employment are internal arrangements made by Ministers for discussion among themselves. As such it would not be in accordance with long-standing practice to itemise the results to date of the Task Force's work.
From time to time specific measures will be implemented on the basis of decisions reached by Government that have been proposed by the Task Force. Such measures—for example, those to increase work opportunities referred to in the Government statement of 21 July 1983—normally emerge as part of the ongoing work of Government.
Can the Taoiseach tell us whether this rather quaint idea, the Employment Task Force of the Government, meets regularly? Is it still meeting and, if so, is there anything specific at this stage which has emerged from the meetings of this task force of which the Taoiseach is chairman?
The answer to the first two questions is yes. The answer to the third question has been given already in my reply where I referred to decisions announced in the Government statement of 21 July.
Does the Taoiseach really believe that the following, which I understand was the total package dealt with after Barrettstown in July — a pilot job sharing scheme in the public service, measures to overcome obstacles to voluntary work and the streamlining of the placement services in the National Manpower Service — justify the name of an employment task force?
If that were all the task force did, no. Those are the first fruits of its work. It is meeting at present and examining other proposals which will emerge in due course through the normal process of Government decision making.
Obviously I am not going to find out much about this very interesting new development in the Government's paraphernalia, a task force chaired by the Taoiseach which is apparently devoting itself to the problem of unemployment. Would the Taoiseach not think that the unemployment figures at the moment are so disastrous that the whole Government should constitute themselves into an employment task force?
They are the priority of the Government. By constituting a task force of this kind of the relevant Ministers, an additional impetus can be given to the work of the Government who have to concern themselves with matters other than this most primary issue of unemployment. Many other Government decisions are required. To have a body which can concentrate exclusively on this subject and make recommendations for action to the Government for actions which have been pre-prepared by the key Ministers in question is a useful innovation and is so proving itself.
One final supplementary on this.
We are at the argument stage now.
No. Will the Taoiseach accept that, since this Government took office and since this employment task force under his chairmanship was established, unemployment has risen by 23,000, seasonally adjusted to 26,000, and that the 200,000 figure has almost been arrived at? Would he not think that those figures in themselves would prove conclusively to the impartial observer that this employment task force which he has the honour to chair is a joke and is doing nothing?
Nothing to diminish the magnitude of the appalling character and distress caused by unemployment which is a major problem we face. Nonetheless, it is a fact that, over the past six months, the rate of increase in unemployment has been around half what it was during 1982, when the Deputy was Taoiseach.
The Taoiseach should come to Cork and we will tell him otherwise.
I do not want to make much out of that because frankly these trends are not susceptible to short-term Government action. I do not claim for a moment that the slowing down over this period is the result to any significant degree of actions of this Government or will necessarily continue in the same way. Factually the situation is as I have stated it. It is the primary objective of this Government to deal with it. We are hamstrung by the situation we have inherited, by the accumulation of debt and repayments and by the levels to which taxation has been forced in order to keep up with the increase in expenditure under our predecessors, which increased from 36 per cent of GNP to 50 per cent of GNP in five years. The burden of interest payments and capital repayments, and the burden of taxation required to cope with them make it impossible for the Government to tackle as effectively as any Government would wish to do the problem of unemployment. We have to face that fact. We have to tackle it as best we can, but with our hands tied behind our backs by five years of mismanagement.
(Interruptions.)
Order.
Would the Taoiseach come around to thinking that the people of this country, and particularly the approximately 200,000 unemployed, are a bit tired of his constant excusing of himself for inability to deal with the problem by blaming somebody else? Could he accept that his Government have been in office for a year now and that unemployment——
That is not in order on this question. This is a regular debate on unemployment.
In replying to me the Taoiseach brought in some matters which I want to ask him about.
Earlier the Chair drew the Deputy's attention to the fact that we were getting into a debate. We have now got into it. It is not in order.
The Taoiseach made a little statement and I want to ask him a little further about it. He made the statement. I did not. You did not stop him making it.
He was replying to a question.
Does he not think it is about time he stopped distorting recent economic histroy and acknowledged that the first Coalition Government, of which he was a member, borrowed relatively more than any Government before or since? Would he also accept that in the year in which he has been in office, the public debt will go up by £2 billion, which is an all-time record? In the interests of young people in particular will he for heaven's sake get down to doing his job and stop trying to score frittery political debating points.
I will allow an answer to that question, and then I will pass on to the next question.
I will leave it to a more impartial observer than I am to decide who is scoring political points.
That is the worst of having a debate at Question Time.
The reality is that the problem we have inherited will not go away easily——
Until the Taoiseach goes away.
Once public expenditure has been pushed up from 36 per cent to 50 per cent of GNP once you have accumulated an extra £3½ billion of foreign borrowing over that period, which has to be repaid and remunerated, you face problems which make any effective action extremely difficult. That will remain the case for several years to come. It will take at least as long as it took to create the mess to resolve it, if not longer. It will remain a problem. Next year alone the Government will have to find £1 billion in order to pay interest on the foreign debt and to repay foreign debt incurred in the period of office of the preceding Government as a result of that increase in public expenditure.