Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Self-evidently the Government's policy on jobs and its promise to get Ireland working is failing. We lost 14,000 full-time jobs last year. If it was not for emigration the unemployment crisis, which is already very severe, would be at absolutely catastrophic levels. It really seems as if emigration is the Government's jobs policy and that is a shame for any Government, given the history of this State. I have made those points many times as have others. Tonight I want to concentrate on two particular issues.

The Government goes on and on about the need to upskill, re-educate and re-train people. I have just come from a meeting in Dún Laoghaire organised by teachers in the further education sector where they protested about the Government's plans to increase the staff-student ratio from 1:17 to 1:19. They point out that this sector has been absolutely critical in finding a pathway into third level education and employment for many of the people who are not suited to the normal CAO and academic system. It has been a very successful sector and they pointed out that as a result of what the Government is doing in our area alone 14 jobs will be lost, across the country 500, and thousands of places for students, particularly those from disadvantaged areas, who had a pathway into further education and employment, will be cut. How can the Government claim that it needs to re-train, re-educate and re-orientate our economy and at the same time slash a sector which will be absolutely critical to achieving that end? I appeal to the Government to back off on the increase in the staff-student ratio, take away the caps from the further education sector and protect and develop this sector which will be critical to re-training people who need to work or are coming out of school.

My second point is about forestry. There are many studies which show in detail that every 15,000 hectares of forest planted can generate 500 or 600 jobs. We have completely failed to deliver on our afforestation targets. In Switzerland, a country half the size of ours, 100,000 people work on the same amount of forestry as ours yet only 10,000 are employed here. The Government proposes to sell off the harvesting rights to that forestry rather than have a programme of public investment to develop the forestry sector and create potentially 50,000 or 100,000 jobs over ten years if we meet our afforestation targets. I urge the Government not to sell the forestry rights and instead to invest in this sector to create jobs and revenue for the State.

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