John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thought I would have more time to contribute to the debate. However, with the time constraints I will stick to a few points that are meant to be constructive. The motion and the amendments all contain points we would all support. I want to avoid the blame game about what people should have done in the past. The bottom line for the upcoming budget is that the most vulnerable need to and must be protected. I know the Minister and her Government colleagues have tried in every way possible to do that since they took office and they will do so in the budget also. However, the task is to distribute the €20 billion that is available in an even-handed and fair way.

The best way to reduce the need for social welfare expenditure is to protect and create jobs. The jobs initiative announced when the new Government took over did not solve everything but was a significant step and pointed us in the direction in which we need to go. My experience is that all the people I meet want work. In particular young people want a start in life and structure on their life. They want to get up in the morning and go out. That is the culture we need to promote. While I know it will not be able to produce 100,000 jobs in coming months, CE schemes represent tremendous value for money. There is a perception that there is a very limited range of work that can be done in communities with them. However, these schemes employed 40,000 people in the 1980s, but there are only 22,000 now. There is potential for giving people that structure to their lives and giving them a start in work.

A few weeks ago I sat in a room with 20 participants on a CE scheme in County Mayo. If the Minister is ever in that area I invite her to come and see that scheme. I came away uplifted by each of them articulating what it meant for them to be on the scheme, what work they were doing and the services they were delivering to the local community. There is great potential for expanding those schemes. While we know there is limited money, those schemes can both deliver value for money and give people a meaning in life.

In addition to increasing the number of schemes we should also expand the criteria for them. At the moment people under 25 cannot join them. In my constituency more than 13,000 people under 25 are unemployed. It would represent a start for them because many of the people I mentioned a few minutes ago are in the process of moving on to setting up their own businesses as a result of the skills they learned on the schemes, which is what they should be about.

I previously raised the matter of people wanting to reskill. Some university graduates have lost the potential for employment given the degrees they have. They have gone back to try to reskill at a lower level but will not get a back to education grant as a result of it being a lower skill. They want to work but they are trapped. Flexibility needs to be introduced and the barriers need to be eliminated.

We need to look at the self-employed. These are people who have contributed to the economy and have employed people. All the people they previously employed are getting their entitlements but they are not entitled to anything. I am not suggesting it will be easy but those people need help and that inequity in the system needs to be addressed. The Minister has a difficult task in which I wish her well. I know she will protect the vulnerable as much as possible.

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