Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. The young have long been treated as an easy target for budget cuts. In the first few austerity budgets, young people were singled out for particularly vindictive treatment. Third level fees skyrocketed, there were cutbacks to unemployment benefits for those under 25 and youth services were cut to the bone. The message of successive Governments, first that of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party and then that of Fine Gael and Labour, was that the country could not afford young people and perhaps they could try their luck elsewhere. As a result, tens of thousands of people, including dozens I grew up with, left for Western Australia, Canada, London, the United States and countless other places. Those left behind faced unemployment or underemployment and miserly supports if they could not find a job.

The Taoiseach is fond of telling the House of his republic of opportunity. Young people do not want a hand-out or any special pleading but only the opportunity to have a decent standard of living. However, my generation is being denied the opportunities that previous generations took for granted. There was little in the budget to convince those who travelled to the four corners of the world there is anything in this republic of opportunity for them to come home to. Some 15,000 students marched outside Leinster House last week seeking respite from the crippling fees that are discouraging many from pursuing the education that could give them real opportunities. However, the Government appears deaf to their demands. The Government also appears to be militantly opposed to equal pay for equal work for young workers in the public sector. I remind the Tánaiste that the youth unemployment rate remains at 15%. Those who do not have work face discrimination because of reduced unemployment benefit regardless of circumstance or whether they have mouths to feed or rent to pay.

Earlier this year, the Taoiseach, who was then Minister for Social Protection, confirmed to me that Ireland had drawn down none of the Youth Guarantee funding available to it in the previous year, so the indifference of the Government to young unemployed people should come as no surprise.

Housing is the key issue for young people. The average rent is Dublin is now €1,700 and the average purchase price of a property is €250,000 countrywide and much higher in Dublin and Cork. People are breaking their backs just to keep the roof of a cold poky flat over their heads.

The young of this country have the opportunity to be blocked from getting a third level education, to face discrimination in pay and unemployment benefits, to live from one short-term contract to the next while earning pathetic pay, to pay a third or half their income on rent and to be locked out of the housing market. When will the Government begin to deliver a republic of opportunity for my generation and to give them the opportunity to ever own their own home? At present, that is nothing but a pipe dream.

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