Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Thug an cáinaisnéis éigeandála in Aibreán 2009 deis don Rialtas tús a chur le tabhairt faoin ceist rí-thábhachtach sin, aththraenáil agus oideachas, go háirithe dóibh siúd atá tar éis a bpostanna a chailliúint le déanaí nó dóibh siúd a chaill iad roimh an ghéarchéim. Theip go huile agus go hiomlán ar an Rialtas sin a dhéanamh. Seasann an ráta dífhostaíochta faoi láthair ag 12% agus tá an ráta fáis dífhostaíochta i bhfad Éireann níos airde ná in aon tír eile san Eoraip. De thairbhe an teip ar gheilleagar sealúchais Fhianna Fáil, tá grúpa mór daoine ann atá ag cuartú postanna, daoine a bhfuil ardscileanna acu ach nach bhfuil aon áit acu chun na scileanna sin a chur i bhfeidhm agus a cleachtadh.

Tá grúpa eile, grúpa cuíosach suntasach d'oibrithe ón tionscal tógála ag a bhfuil leibhéalacha ísle oideachais agus traenála acu agus nach féidir leo a bheith úsáidteach in áiteanna eile sa mhargadh fostaíochta. Dar ndóigh, tá aththraenáil ag teastáil láithreach dóibh siúd. Tá grúpa eile arís, siúd atá ag fágáil na scoile don chéad uair. Shíl siadsan bliain ó shin go raibh todhcaí mhaith rompu agus go mbeadh flúirse postanna ann dóibh. Tagann a lán acu sin as ceantair nár thug an tíogar Ceilteach cuairt orthu le linn na blianta go raibh breis agus tuilleadh againn sa tír, nó ar shíl muid go raibh. Níl rompu siúd ach an scuaine dífhostaíochta, an Dole nó an bád bán.

Logical steps like nationalising SR Technics, a profitable company with millions of euro in orders, would have saved more than 1,200 jobs, or five times the 250 jobs the Government is boasting about saving. The cost of unemployment payments for the nearly 1,000 other workers should have been enough to concentrate the mind of the Tánaiste on the logic of nationalisation in this case. However, there is no such thing as logic in the Tánaiste's head or in the Government's agenda. They are plain stupid. It is the Government that created the circumstances which led to the property crash. It is Government policy which is causing the continuing increase in unemployment. It is the property boom and boost which is the central cause of our economic crisis, together with the absolute failure of the Government to build a sustainable economy.

The Government can no longer simply wash its hands of the problem of unemployment, as it has done thus far. Its response to the situation suggests that some on the Government benches do not even accept there is a crisis. The word that should spell it out clearly for them is "dole". That is what the future holds for many people. In my constituency, the dole queues have doubled in 12 months. The numbers unemployed, not including the many whose applications have not been processed for weeks, which is a scandal in itself, are 3,128 in Ballyfermot, 7,609 in the Crumlin-Drimnagh-Dublin 12 area, and 4,169 in the south-west inner city. Those figures do not include the 150 people Guinness plans to lay off in the coming months. Its parent company, Diageo, made a profit of €2.8 billion last year. It is scandalous that such profitable companies are using this opportunity to screw their workers.

Behind all those statistics are real people. Lives are being destroyed by the Government's inaction. Families are struggling. Food is not being bought, mortgages are not being paid and illnesses are not being addressed. Crime is rising and will continue to rise, as will alcoholism and drug addiction, unless the Government acts. As I have said on previous occasions, if those on the Government benches spent six months on the dole, they might have some understanding of the plight of ordinary people who find themselves unemployed. People want to work and earn a wage. They want to pay their taxes, feed their children and purchase goods in their local shops. Above all, they want the Government to get up off its arse and help them. That is the message the electorate sent out two weeks ago.

It is telling to consider the actions taken by the Government in the emergency budget. Annexe F from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment offered a pathetic 400 places on community employment schemes, which will not even cover the increase of 601 in the last month alone on the unemployment list in my constituency of Dublin South-Central. We were also offered a new ten-week training initiative, which is basically a seasonal or summer course. We seem to be back to the era of the banana telephone classes of the AnCO era. I remember that because I was on the dole at the time. Participants were encouraged to sit in rooms to practise telephone techniques in order to improve their chances of getting an interview for jobs which did not exist. In the absence of telephones to give the trainees, they were given bananas to hold.

The budget also offered a work experience scheme and 277 places for workers on short time, as well as 930 transition courses and 700 places for redundant apprentices. To call this inadequate would be the understatement of the millennium. With 400,000 people unemployed, the best our kamikaze Tánaiste can come up with is 400 places on community employment schemes. The earn and learn pilot scheme provides 277 places, but more than 12,000 people have been laid off in the past month alone. I cannot understand why the Government is so reluctant to invest properly in retraining for sustainable jobs. It has allowed its friends in the financial world to direct billions of euro into the black hole that is the banking sector, but it will do virtually nothing to help job seekers.

We are still awaiting the details of the so-called training initiative to create 12,215 new training places. The Government seems intent on meeting that target by cutting existing places. There is no logic to this approach. Its other method of delivering on this magic number is its promise in the budget to introduce more computer courses. ECDL certification and other computer courses are no substitute for jobs. If no jobs are being created, they are nothing more to the participants than poxy Internet courses, as they have been described to me. How will a short ten-week Internet course be of any use to anybody when there is no prospect of obtaining a job after it is completed? The new measures in third level education indicate the same tokenistic approach. It is as if nothing has happened in the past six months. Some 2,000 new places have been provided at third level and 1,500 at post-leaving certificate level. The reality, however, is that 85,000 people aged under 25 are unemployed.

The main plank of the Government's so-called plan for economic recovery has been to bail out the banks and developers using unprecedented amounts of public money, while at the same time cutting back on our most basic education, welfare and health services. The outworking of that policy will hamper the ability of any future Government to rebuild the economy. We are one of the few countries to embark on this road. Every other democracy I can think of has launched major investment programmes to kick-start their economies. What the Government is doing is something akin to what happened in the right-wing banana republics of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.

If the Government does not reprioritise soon and begin to invest in Irish people as opposed to its fat cat friends, there will be unprecedented social problems. In the absence of such change, permanent damage will be done to this State and the crisis in the public finances will be perpetuated.

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