Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important Private Members' Bill. We must acknowledge that we have a very significant unemployment problem in comparison to most northern European countries and North America. In the past few months unemployment and youth unemployment, in particular, have been falling. One issue on which the House should engage more is that of migration within the European Union. To date, we have had a rather simplistic dialogue between the Government and the Opposition about the 2 million job vacancies in Europe. Around ten years ago we in Ireland were actively looking at importing people to work here. The key worry for parents and young people about leaving the country to work abroad is the sense that they will not be able to return at some point in the future. We need to focus on the European labour market in more joined-up terms with respect to pension mobility in order that when people leave Ireland to work, they can return and pick up benefits, which is largely not the case. There is also a need for greater harmonisation of skill sets and qualifications across a broad range of areas.

I accept that the youth guarantee is a good measure, but, ultimately, employment is fed by growth which is a macroeconomic factor. Until the European Central Bank's functions like those of the Federal Reserve in the United States which have an absolute link with unemployment in America, as opposed to monetary policy only which is largely the remit of the Central Bank, we will be playing catch-up. We had representatives of the Commission at the Joint Committee on European Affairs today and the committee was the first among all EU member states to meet them to discuss how social policy would be integrated within a European monetary policy. That is a step towards focusing on unemployment as a key economic indicator, as is done in the United States of America.

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