Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To ask that group of people to contribute to the deficit reduction of the country would have been a tough decision and a leadership decision. Even to find out who owns the bond would have been useful because it was probably brought on the secondary markets for a fraction of the price. That would have been leadership but that is not what happened. What happened instead was this Bill to close the deficit, targeting pensioners, pregnant women, the grieving and the young.

As the Minister knows the Bill will bring in approximately €100 million to the Exchequer next year. Therefore, 13 years of the cuts that this Bill will bring in would pay for one Anglo Irish Bank bond that was paid last year. That is what is happening in this country and that is why this is a lousy Bill.

It is not only a lousy Bill, it is a dangerous Bill because it is discriminatory. Regardless of what any of us think about the need for training or the lack of motivation for people to train, the Bill discriminates against people based on their age. The Equal Status Act 2000 states that discrimination shall be taken to occur where a person is treated less favourably than another person is, has been or would be treated on a variety grounds including gender, race, sexual orientation and age. This Bill discriminates against Irish citizens based on age.

Approximately 180,000 young people have emigrated since 2008 and the vast majority of these, some 84%, say they are leaving to find work. For those who stay, we have an unemployment rate of 28%, which does not include anyone who works for even one hour per week. God only knows what the real rate of unemployment is if we include people who work a Friday night in the local pizzeria.

The logic that I have heard from the Minister, her Cabinet colleagues and the Government backbenchers is that this Bill is being brought forward because the young people in the country are not sufficiently motivated to take up a job or a training course. The Government view is that it will take their pocket money away and those affected can simply move home. However, the latest analysis from the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice estimates that the amount of money a person needs to live at home with his parents and lead a dignified life will be €184 next year. After this Bill such a person will be left with a little over half of that amount. The only logic I can find in the Bill is the following: because we care for young people so much, what we are going to do is deprive them of the opportunity to lead a dignified existence and then perhaps some combination of humiliation and desperation will get them up off their lazy flatscreen-television-watching backsides.

What is the result? It is not more jobs. This Bill will not create jobs. The result is discrimination, emigration and homelessness. It is getting worse. According to the Central Statistics Office, more young people will leave the country this year than since the start of the crisis. The rate at which they are leaving the country is accelerating. The so-called tough decisions in the Bill are being made because the real tough decisions, that would have put it to international anonymous foreign investors that they must share the burden, have not been made. This Bill represents the worst aspects of a week dysfunctional political system in this country.

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