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

I know the rule that when somebody else stands up, one sits down. I was told that when I first sat on the county council. That is many years ago now.

It is very helpful that there has been a decrease in the number of people signing on. It is not enough and I wish it was accelerated. There is one important nugget within that information that we gleaned today. One third of those who are now drawing unemployment benefit have been unemployed for more than one year. Therein lies a danger and I have spoken about this before in the House.

When Deputy Quinn and I laboured many years ago in what was then the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Quinn came up with an idea of the social employment scheme. I concurred with his idea and we launched it together. It involved a huge amount of detailed, hands-on training and it was wonderful because when the upturn came, people were trained to go into jobs. I hope that when the Minister for Social Protection brings forward 10,000 placements under the labour activation market, there will be decent training for those people also. Many people have come to me and have said that they wish to obtain a place on one of those social employment schemes. We do not yet have the details of them, but hopefully they will be unfolded either in the budget or in the following social welfare Bill. That is very worthwhile.

There was a suggestion at our parliamentary party meeting that there should be a national internship programme. Senator Ó Domhnaill proposed it at our meeting and I seconded it, because I think there are huge swathes of people with very fine qualifications who are not able to gain a foothold in the labour market. I would wish that they could use their formal education and that this could be allied to decent employment opportunities within firms. We had a foretaste of that this morning when the Minister for Education and Skills announced a provision whereby unemployed SNAs would have the opportunity to come into the workplace and gain valuable on the job training skills. That is important for the way forward and it is very worthwhile. I hope we will see this all over the public service.

I heard the general secretary of the INTO speaking this morning, and she obviously has a concern for her members and she spoke in that vein. At the same time, it was generous and open of the INTO to agree to welcome such people into their classrooms, and I hope such teachers will gain valuable knowledge and valuable work experience when they come into the workforce. That is what I mean when I talk about a national internship programme. It is very worthwhile and the €32 million that is earmarked for the labour market activation fund is targeted at a specific priority group among the unemployed.

Things might change in the not too distant future, if the polls are correct. I am so glad because some people have been speaking out of both sides of their mouths about the bondholders. The finance spokesperson for the Labour Party has stated, "Now is the time for hard-nosed negotiations with these investors, and we can legitimately plead inability to pay." However, only a month previously, when the leader of the Labour Party was asked whether he would default on "Morning Ireland", he replied that we cannot and should not default. What an amazing volte-face within a short period between two people speaking on public radio. I look forward to all of this and to oceans and acres of it. That of course is if I get back, which is another question altogether.

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