Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Social Welfare and Pensions Bill includes a number of measures that specifically disadvantage certain groups. Working mothers, the elderly, sick people and young people were targeted by measures that have, yet again, not been equality-proofed. We have certainly not been provided with any impact analysis of the cuts that will penalise certain members of our society.

To place the burden of austerity on the shoulders of those who were too young to have anything to do with the economic crisis, but who might actually get the country out of the mess it finds itself in, is unjust, short-sighted and foolish. The effective export of our young people is aptly described by a young unemployed woman from Wexford named Lisa. Here are her own words, which I found on a website called "We're Not Leaving":

I want to work. Let's get that out of the way first. I desperately want a job. You see, I graduated from college in May and moved home to Wexford -- a county as synonymous with suicide and unemployment as potatoes and strawberries. I moved home and I sent out my CV, but nothing...

I'm a graduate of TV and media production, which means I have a select group of skills that aren't all that useful to many. A Mickey Mouse degree you might call it, but I have a very good CV. I've won national competitions, a scholarship, and have three highly useful internships kicking about.

About two months ago I made the decision to move to Dublin to seek work in the media industry, with only my jobseeker's allowance to get by, which was then €143 a week. Let me break that down for you: €87.50 for rent, €18 for the Luas, €20 put aside for bills, and that leaves me with €18 for food and recreation. For two months I've been unemployed and seeking work in Dublin. To describe the experience as moving on two timelines is appropriate. On the one hand, nothing's happened, but on the other I've had half a dozen near-misses and near-jobs but I'm still exactly where I started, though arguably poorer and far more lonely in a city of a million people who don't know my name.

The harsh realities of job seeking is a slap in the face. It's draining and horrible and makes you feel utterly insignificant. How long can you answer questions about what makes you special before you start to doubt your words or ponder the truth of it? What makes me special? Nothing. I have all the same skills of those thousands of graduates. And I go into these job interviews and I really do try, but now the Government turns around and they issue the biggest "F--- you" to under 25s.

I've come to realise that the JobBridge scheme is probably where my future lies, and I thought it was manageable: €194 a week would give me a little breathing space and I could continue to live frugally and put aside €20 a week to pay my bills and it would be okay, but no. The Government has cut JobBridge to €150 for me now. This is a full-time job we're talking about here - 40 hours a week, 9 to 5, at €3.80 an hour. If this wasn't a government scheme, one has to wonder about the legality of it. The minimum wage is just under €9 an hour; JobBridge is less than half that.

Realistically, I can't afford to live on €150 for nine months. My money, simply, will run out and I don't have rich relatives or anything of the sort I can rely on. Scambridge, you might call it, because that's what it is. It's cheap labour. The rate for under 25s who sign on from January is €100 a week and the thing that baffles me is that we don't differentiate between those who live at home and those who don't.

There was nothing for me in Wexford, so I had to leave. I couldn't live on €100 a week. Add in the cheaper tax on flights, and you have to wonder if maybe there is no disconnect and that the Government sees the situation for what it is. Thousands of us fight for the same jobs. Are we a lost generation? I can't get a job because I don't have the experience, but the leeway in, JobBridge - a scheme that arguably takes up space of positions that would have previously been full-paid actual jobs - is too meagre a wage, so where does that leave me? I don't want to leave but I live in an Ireland that no longer values people like me. Do I have any choice but to go?

Lisa from Wexford.

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