Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

Behind the unemployment statistics are the lives of real people with mortgages and bills to pay and families to feed and support. They face terrible uncertainty over whether they can find employment in the short term. We must recognise this and focus on getting people back to work so they have the satisfaction of financial security.

My colleagues, the Ministers for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, have provided some positive ideas through the recent national insulation programme and the water management investment scheme and have given an incentive to people to get back to work. Almost 4,000 jobs will be sustained through investment in water infrastructure and an estimated 10,000 jobs through the energy efficiency schemes, the home energy saving schemes, the warmer home schemes and the social housing insulation schemes. While this will not help everyone it is a significant start.

Under the auspices of FÁS, the Government is providing for the re-education of those in certain sectors through new training places. A new training fund is being established, which will facilitate those who face redundancy, help apprentices complete their studies and provide community employment schemes. The county enterprise boards are pushing out the boat to help people with good ideas to get up and running with start-up finance. I also acknowledge the Tánaiste's recent commitment to 51,000 training places delivered through FÁS, increasing to 78,000 over time. That will give heart to those worried about their future.

While we have focused on those in the construction sector or the lower paid sector, we must think of the highly skilled who are losing their jobs. Almost 45% of architects are out of work. Engineers, graphic design artists and editors have degrees, are highly trained and have skills but where will they go? In previous times, Irish men and women went to America, England and New Zealand, but they are experiencing the same global downturn. We must find creative ways to get ourselves out of this hole and make sure the skilled who have lost their jobs have the chance to re-enter the work force. Many of those who have contacted me who are still in employment have taken a 30% pay cut to keep their companies going and they are happy to do it to get through these hard times.

For these groups of unemployed, there is a difficult path back into the work force. They are unable to re-skill in the same way as builders or carpenters can be trained to adapt to the national insulation programme so they must try something different. This is where we can do it in Ireland. With the knowledge economy and the roll out of broadband, many of these people could work from home on a global basis. An architect in Ireland could draw up plans for a client in England, Switzerland, France or Spain. Broadband is the key to development, particularly in a rural constituency like Carlow-Kilkenny or those of other colleagues in the Dáil who live in rural areas. If we have top quality broadband rolled out, there is a chance people can network, set up their own businesses at home, connect to the global community and, perhaps, unemployment could kick-start their careers and spur them to set up their own business. We must look at the skilled in the private sector who have lost their jobs as well as the unskilled because they will find it difficult.

We hope there will be 100% broadband coverage by 2010 with 50% coverage by the end of this year. There are no grounds for complacency. Long-term unemployment is socially upsetting and has huge financial implications, with emotional effects on families, and not just on the husband or wife but on the children, who pick up on it when things are not right at home or people are in bad humour. People are in bad humour because they do not have a job.

The highly skilled must not be forgotten, the low skilled must be up-skilled and trained. There was good news this week, with Hewlett Packard announcing 500 jobs. Let us cross our fingers there will be further announcements like that.

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