Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

I wish to provide an example of one of the ways in which we might assist people who have recently become unemployed. I refer to the provision of State-backed loans to allow people to return to postgraduate education. A number of months ago I was contacted by a friend of mine who resides in the west. The man in question graduated from UCG in the mid-1990s and has since worked as a design engineer for a blue chip company. He is highly qualified but he was made redundant because the American company for which he was working filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. After 12 years, my friend was offered a statutory redundancy package. He now proposes to embark on an MBA programme but in order to do so he will be obliged to put up €16,000 from his own savings. When one considers that he is getting married later in the year, there is no doubt this is quite an amount of money.

He approached his local county council, the local enterprise board and FÁS but he was turned down by each for funding to assist him to retrain and up-skill so that when things get better he could return to the jobs market. If that person was provided with a loan from the State, specifically for postgraduate studies, he told me he would be more than willing to draw it down if he could repay it as soon as he re-enters the workforce. He would be willing to pay an administrative fee and even a low rate of interest on the loan. I see the logic of his suggestion. If we can fund the banks to the tune of €7 billion, I do not understand why we cannot direct those banks to provide lending for people in such circumstances. They cannot pay exorbitant postgraduate fees at present because every cent they have must go on keeping life and limb together. The money they have is real income that will be used, in this person's case, for survival and to keep food on the table.

There must be lateral thinking about where we are going. The old paradigms relating to how we allocated resources and money have gone out the window. There is an opportunity now to come up with radical proposals. Let us not be afraid to embrace radical proposals on how to get back on our feet. If the person I mentioned was given that assistance, he would not squander it. Everything he has done has been achieved through hard work. That is, generally, the nature of the Irish psyche. Nobody wants anything for free and if they can get some form of assistance, they are willing to pay for it if it is given in an equitable fashion.

The Governor of the Central Bank addressed the economic regulatory affairs committee yesterday. He said the country's competitiveness has been on the wane for some time. If this Government intends to put forward a budget shortly, it must examine the issue of competitiveness and the cost of employing people in the current environment. Employers' PRSI must be changed in some way to make it easier for employers to retain employees. The Government must deal with this in its deliberations on the budget.

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