The employment action plan is an enormous document which takes in any activity vaguely associated with employment which is undertaken by the State, including enterprise issues and the work of the IDA. The action plan is a mechanism of reporting to Europe. There are European guidelines which each member state is supposed to try to follow in terms of making it easier for women to get back into work or how people are dealt with on labour market programmes such as CE schemes and so on. The European Commission makes comments on the national plans where it feels they are deficient. The Commission made three points about the Irish action plan.
It stated that Ireland was still weak and more work needed to be done on active labour market programmes such as community employment which, contrary popular belief, the Commission considered was not accessible enough. It felt that not enough people who are outside the labour market are getting access to labour market programmes and that they needed to be strengthened. The Commission also referred to the need to strengthen the incentives of making work pay. This has to do with the transition from unemployment benefit to employment for many groups of people who are in a benefit trap. It also commented on the totally unacceptable level of availability and affordability of child care, of which members will be aware. Furthermore, the Commission underlined the lack of a coherent lifelong learning strategy, particularly for the lower skilled.
I will refer to the active labour market programmes and lifelong learning and Ms O'Connor from the National Women's Council will comment on child care and the gender pay gap. As members know, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment intends to reform the CE system. It is discussing the elimination of the jobs initiative and social employment programmes in order to concentrate on CE as a single measure. We have problems with this proposal because the use of CE purely as a labour market programme, through which to move people onto the labour market in a year, will fail to reach many people for whom CE has been a bridge to the labour market, particularly lone parents and other groups.
Moreover, as Deputies are aware, if CE is removed the provision of many services at community level will collapse. We must separate the labour market programmes and targeted training from the delivery of community services. We also recommend that Government and Opposition parties seriously consider separating them in terms of their lead Departments and that a new scheme, incorporating the old jobs initiative or the social employment scheme should not be delivered through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment but through the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs because it would be a much more sensible home for that type of activity.
The CE scheme also needs to be extended beyond the totally unrealistic one year framework. There will always be groups of people who will not be able to enter the CE system and come straight onto the labour market in one year. We must continue to have some version of the jobs initiative programme. I appeal to Deputies to read that section of the submission in particular.
The Commission comments on lifelong learning targets, early school leaving and the level of participation in training, particularly among lower skilled people and older workers which is where the problem lies. Mid-ranking civil servants, officials and people working in private industry as well as other professionals and skilled people are now participating in endless courses to upskill themselves — there is no shortage of lifelong learning opportunities for them. However, the problem in Ireland is with lower skilled and unskilled workers, many of who left school early and have poor educational qualifications.
Given demographic trends, most of the people who will be in the labour force in 2015 are already in it. Therefore, training and education must be targeted more at people already in employment. We have a problem with people who are just hanging on with no leaving certificate. More than 40% of the workforce never completed a leaving certificate, which may surprise people. Such people have relatively low paid and low skilled jobs and their access to better their position is very limited. The Commission focused on this issue in respect of which something must be done. A great deal has been done about lifelong learning and I commend the Government on the FETAC system and the national training fund, which have come on in leaps and bounds. However, to date this has still not been targeted at the low skilled, which is the crucial movement we need to see.