I will be totally disorderly at the beginning and say I agree with everything Senator Lanigan and Senator Manning said about the staff of the House, etc. I just did not see any point in standing up twice to say it.
The Jobsearch scheme was announced by the Government in the budget. A Jobsearch scheme can have a variety of meanings and interpretations. I know, for instance, that in that most enlighted of countries, Sweden, they operate schemes similar to what an enlightened Jobsearch scheme would contain. By that device, among other devices, apart of course from their extremely enlightened industrial, economic and other policies which all go under the general tag of the almost forgotten word in this country "socialism", they have succeeded in keeping unemployment at extraordinarily low levels and defeating many of the unfortunate consequences of unemployment in terms of social decay, social alienation etc.
I listened with some interest when the Minister for Finance announced far from precisely what was contained in the Jobsearch programme. Certain qualified remarks were made. I saw a report in the newspaper that the Minister for Social Welfare had given an assurance that nobody would be expected to work or to take anything under the Jobsearch scheme, which would result in them having an income less than their unemployment benefit or assistance. One of the things I hope the Minister will do tonight is to assure me that is not what he said because for a single person the flat rate unemployment assistance is £35 per week. I sincerely hope that is not what the Minister had in mind. I am fairly certain, knowing the Minister and the general traditions of the party he belongs to, that it would not be the intention that people would work for that sort of figure. I look forward to the Minister's clarification.
Recently newspaper reports emerged and at the same time a copy of what are called "The Jobsearch Guidelines" came into my possession. There are many extradordinary questions to be asked not about the positive objectives being presented as being behind the Jobsearch scheme but rather the judgmental implications of various aspects of the Jobsearch scheme and the way matters are raised within the Jobsearch scheme. What came into my possession may perhaps be incomplete, it may be unrepresentative, it may be inadequate, it may be a lot of things, but nevertheless it is a document which, if it is incomplete, deserves to be completed by having the remainder published. If it is complete, it should be published in the widest possible scale so that people will know what is involved in the Jobsearch scheme.
The Jobsearch Guidelines are based on a Government directive that:
(1) 150,000 currently on the Live Register should be put through the jobsearch process.
That is not the happiest of language to use when one is talking about people who are the victims of the single greatest injustice in our country today, which is unemployment, and the consequential damage that does to people. To talk about putting such people through a jobsearch process is a little like processing sausages in a sausage factory. These things can happen, but it is unhappy language. The Jobsearch Guidelines continue:
...in which a minimum of 40,000 manpower scheme opportunities will be offered to them from 1st April to 31st December, 1987, with a substantial bias towards people who are longer on the Live Register.
Leaving aside the unhappy language, the objective of getting people who are a long time on the unemployed register doing something that is beneficial and worth while is a good idea. The obvious ultimate idea would be to put them all back to work, doing decent, meaningful jobs which will earn a reasonable income for them. That seems to be a perfectly reasonable objective and any sort of interventionist scheme devised by the State which has that objective I would support. The ESRI long ago pointed out that the only real way to make an impact on unemployment in this country — even given proper fiscal policy and given a restoration of proper budgetary balance by the Government — would be through an expanded public service. This is something that is frequently forgotten. The entire economic staff of the ESRI said we would need to expand the public service in order seriously to have an impact on unemployment, even if the budgetary problems were straightened out. Any sort of State scheme which is going to give people something decent to do by way of training or work, is something I would support.
The document goes on to say:
(2) Jobsearch courses should be provided for an additional 12,000 people from 1st May to 31st December, 1987.
What one would then expect is some elaboration of what this meant but what one gets instead is the following:
(3) people who
(i) do not attend for a jobsearch interview,
(ii) do not accept the reasonable offer of an interview with a private sector employer,
(iii) do not accept the reasonable offer of a place in a manpower scheme,
(iv) do not attend for an employer interview scheme or course or,
(v) are dismissed from schemes or courses because they are uncooperative,
should be notified by the Department of Social Welfare for a decision on their disallowance for unemployment benefit or assistance.
What an extraordinary one-sided judgmental set of terms of reference to write into something that ought to be positive, enlightened and people-orientated, apart altogether from whether that is the proper approach.
Let us reflect on some of the words used, "who do not accept the reasonable offer of a place on a Manpower scheme, who do not accept the reasonable offer of an interview". Who is to interpret what is reasonable? Is there any way in which somebody who is adjudicated not to have accepted a reasonable offer can appeal against that adjudication? We do not know. All we know is that people should be reported to the Department of Social Welfare for a decision on their disallowance for unemployment benefit or assistance. The positive philosophy which was presented to us as being the motivating force behind this scheme is now lost in virtually the opening paragraph of the guidelines in what looks suspiciously like a witchhunt for people who are allegedly not really part of the deserving poor among the ranks of the unemployed.