Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a huge problem of unemployment. The Government inherited a very big, deep financial problem when it was elected. When one has problems of such a scale one can either rant and chant about them, as Deputy Clare Daly does, or one can try to fix them, as the Labour Party entered government to do and is doing. Let us take the issue of youth unemployment. The Deputy is correct that the level of youth unemployment is much too high. Far too many young people coming out of college and university cannot find the type of employment their qualifications justify. One can either shout slogans about this or try to solve the problem. The Labour Party placed the idea of a youth guarantee on the agenda of the European Union and succeeded in negotiating a package of €6 billion to support the guarantee and enable us to put in place practical measures to resolve these problems. This is the reason, for example, that we work so hard to try to attract investment to this country and provide employment for young people coming out of college.

It is remarkable that one can go through constituency after constituency and one will find the ultra left opposing every single proposal for industrial development or the location of industry. In my constituency, for example, a proposal by a company to provide additional employment is being actively opposed by Deputy Daly's colleagues on the benches opposite. The Deputies cannot have it both ways. They cannot chant, rave and shout slogans about youth unemployment and then oppose every single measure that is taken, whether to correct the public finances or locate a particular industry in a particular area to try to solve youth unemployment.

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