Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thought two committee members, in their remarks at the beginning of the meeting, were overly critical of the Government's performance in the past couple of years, as if we had inherited a normal economy in normal times. It is important to remember the context. This country had lost its credibility on the international stage and it has been an extraordinary task to reinstate and win it back. We have to keep that context in mind.

What I identify with the Minister are his energy, commitment and dedication to the high end of the economy. The ideas, techniques, technology and vision are almost iconoclastic. I do not understand it all, but I find it very exciting and that it has a lot of credibility because we realise people in the Department know what they are on about. This is showing results on the ground and part of the narrative of restoration of reputation that Ireland is pulling from the sinking ship era of a couple of years ago. However, this is only half the picture. I am very concerned about the lack of focus and investment in areas in which there is huge clustering of unemployed persons in urban communities, where personal, community and family instability is being engendered by people not working, losing the dignity of work and the income related with work, particularly for former construction workers. The trickle down effect of the Minister's endeavours will not extend far enough, quickly enough or deeply enough to raise the hopes and aspirations of the families of the people concerned. We must look at that issue. We must bring forward practical ideas to restore hope and restore belief in communities that something positive can be done. This malaise must be recognised and tackled. I cannot see why big labour intensive projects such as the DART and St. James's Hospital extensions are not being prioritised. There are hundreds of construction jobs tied into these projects.

I thank the Minister for agreeing to come to Ballyfermot College which has shown in the past 30 years how the creative industry can create jobs in unexplored areas such as animation, film making, the music industry and so on. The creative sector received no investment, other than teachers' salaries. This is extraordinary. An entire genre of film making has been reinvented at Ballyfermot College without investment, except in teachers' salaries. I know that the Minister has come to look at it, but it is an inspirational story in the past 25 years. We must focus on these areas of high unemployment, where even community employment schemes are barely financed enough. We must realise how important such schemes are to keep people's dignity afloat. We must examine the pittance people receive when they go back onto a community employment scheme. We must make the scheme a base for the social economy. We need to build a social economy which encompasses the human values associated with the social economy across Europe. Ours is the most fragile in Europe; it is non-existent and the community employment scheme could be its bedrock.

We need to look at these areas in which there are thousands of people without work. If we leave them without work, hope will evaporate and we will have serious community issues that will be impossible to tackle if they move beyond a certain point. We need to start focusing on them. If some other Minister can do what this Minister has done at the high end in some of the areas I am highlighting, we certainly will be addressing the full picture, rather than half of it.