Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the recent announcement of job creation proposals by Government. The only problem I have is that after four years of the 31st Dáil it is inadequate. We are still in a dire situation and have one of the longest-standing and highest long-term unemployment rates in the European Union despite initiatives such as changes to the welfare system and more training for young people seeking work. Youth unemployment is rampant at 26%, which is unacceptably high. For every job created, five people have emigrated. We have seen that reality in particular in rural Ireland where many parishes and sporting organisations are decimated and do not have the necessary numbers to make up sporting teams. Many of the jobs that have been created are low paid or temporary and 25,000 people are attending activation schemes and classified as being employed notwithstanding that they are only on short-term training schemes in reality. It does not give a true indication of their status.

An indicator is the number of people on social welfare benefits for a very long term of over three years. Over the past five years, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit for more than three years has increased fourfold, or 300% in percentage terms. When figures on the very long-term jobless were first published in 2009, there were 25,000 people in the State who had been on jobseeker's benefit for more than three years. The figures for 2014 show that almost 100,000 were in this predicament, which is more than one in four people who are now on the dole for more than three years. One of the most significant problems for those on the long-term unemployment register is that it is self-perpetuating. People who are without a job for a long period are statistically less likely to find work as employers naturally favour those with suitable skills. The Government must pursue the matter relentlessly over the remaining term of the Dáil, in particular through the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, and the relevant Ministers of State. I call on the Government to pursue the matter more vigorously than it has in the past four years.

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