Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tonight I will focus on the issue of youth unemployment, underemployment and emigration, particularly its impact on young people and on the community in general in areas outside the bigger cities, such as the west and the north west, which is the area I represent.

A good many years ago when I was a young lad doing the leaving certificate in Sligo, times were hard and workers were on fairly low incomes. In those days, some had to emigrate to find paid employment, yet I can remember there was always hope for a better future. Young people such as myself could realistically hope to find paid employment locally if we did not wish to emigrate, parents could hope that their children would be able to use the education they had gained in finding employment at home, and grandparents could realistically hope that they would see their children and grandchildren grow up living someplace close to them. What have we now? Particularly in the smaller towns and villages and in rural areas, I am afraid we have communities without hope. That is the worst the Government has done to the people of Ireland. It is bad enough to inflict austerity on people, to repeatedly cut their wages or their social welfare payments and the small additions they get, and to cut back on the public services of which they avail, but the biggest and most damaging thing the Government has done to communities and those within those communities is that it has taken hope from them.

The Government talks about how it values our young people. Frankly, that is hypocrisy. How can it value young people and then turn around and say that it will give those under 25 years €100 per week because they did not emigrate?

That is what we are saying to them. We have managed to wreck the economy to the point where we are not providing jobs or an infrastructure that would support the creation of jobs, yet we are penalising the people who had nothing to do with the banking system that caused the wreckage. Young people in this country had no hand, act or part in destroying the economy. It was the fault of politicians, regulators and greedy, unscrupulous investors and bankers but the young people are having to pay.

Four months ago I received a telephone call from a young neighbour of mine who was in a pub outside Melbourne in Australia. He had counted 25 people from north County Leitrim attending a birthday party in the pub. I could not find 25 young people in a pub in my town of Manorhamilton because of the numbers who have emigrated. Years ago, emigrants sang about their love for the land of their birth. What will our young emigrants sing about the land of their birth and of the politicians who allowed this to happen? Shame on all of us for allowing this to happen. Austerity cannot fix a broken economy. It destroys real economies and if people want to know the Government's response, they should read the amendment it has moved in response to my party's motion. It is a sad day to see what it is offering our young people.

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