Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)

It is hard to be positive when debating unemployment but we need to be for the young people who need a job and want to continue living in this country. They do not want to be a statistic in the 85,000 youth unemployed or forced to emigrate. They want to stay in their country in which they have families and friends, using the skills they learned through their education.

Many young people in south west Dublin inner city do not have an education or an option to emigrate. They will be just left alone. For many of them, even the courses provided in the local community have failed to bring them some level of education. The Government believes FÁS is the solution. However, the agency is only a sticking plaster. A person on the dole for over three months is obliged to attend interviews at FÁS to discuss job opportunities. In theory this is good but in practice one size does not fit all. Some of the opportunities or retraining offered are impossible. Last year,. FÁS interviewed 64,000 people but I still do not know how many of them got jobs.

Many gifted craftsmen, such as plumbers and carpenters, have been made casualties of the economic downturn. Many of them feel they have been thrown on the scrap heap because many of them will never have the opportunity to work again, particularly in their chosen trade. The other day I met one such 64 year-old worker who went for an interview at FÁS at which he was offered a job in a charity shop. I am not knocking charity shops but he was told his first role would be to take clothes out of bags and then hang them on hangers. If he advanced after that stage, he would be allowed use the cash register. This was humiliating for this hard-working man who has never been on the dole before. This is another opportunity for the Government to tick FÁS's box.

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