Mary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I want to make the case in the course of this debate for a national system of internship. At a recent parliamentary party meeting Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill raised the matter, which I seconded, and a good general discussion followed. In all my years of public life I have never met so many highly qualified young people coming to see me with a CV and hope in their faces. Much money has been spent by the Government and their parents on their education and they hoped for a brighter future in their own country. A national internship programme would ensure that every firm with vacancies could come together and there could be tailoring of people's abilities and skills to the vacancies on offer.

I would begin with semi-State bodies. Representatives from these bodies met the Taoiseach months ago but they have not come up with a national internship programme. The same semi-State bodies have chief executives with an obscene level of salary, and there is no willingness to cut this by half at least. I do not understand how they can pocket this money while believing they cannot help society.

Young people have qualifications and technical, social and professional gifts, and these can be harnessed and put to the good of the country. Several small firms have made it known to me of their wish to put a programme in place and take somebody in. They are willing to take on somebody qualified at third level who wishes to gain experience and work in this country. There is very fertile ground in this respect and it is distressing for parents to see children who have toiled hard as students to gain qualifications without anybody to take heed of what they have and how they should use it. FÁS has a good scheme and has filled its 1,000 places. I have made inquiries and it has an excellent scheme but it is not enough. I can envisage thousands coming on stream in the programme but it would have to be a Government initiated national internship programme for one or two years.

Young people say they would be willing to work for whatever they receive in unemployment benefit but I would respectfully say that there should at least be a minimum top-up and proper protocols for the employment of these people to ensure there would be no exploitation and that the young people concerned would get valued experience. After that they would be able to give their qualifications to the firm in which they would work.

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Smith, is in the House. There should be a call made to every private, semi-State or State company, from the smallest to the largest, to ask if they will participate in a national internship programme and tick a box if they say, "Yes". A simple one-page advertisement in which they would be able to see how they could contribute to the future of free young people could be published. Public service departments and the Civil Service should also be able to give valued experience to young people and, in turn, contribute to a more useful tenor within particular sections of Departments.

The forthcoming four-year budget programme must include a stimulus for the economy. A national programme, such as an internship programme, throughout the country would be a stimulus to further employment and the use of young graduates who have studied hard and seen their hopes driven into the sand.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I know I have one minute left. I know the look which comes on his face - it is called the one-minute look.

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