Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann supports measures aimed at slowing and ultimately reversing the increases in the rate of unemployment, measures such as preventing job losses, redirecting the unemployed towards reskilling and further education and stemming long-term unemployment through subsidy measures to help with reintegrating them into the workforce. The economic indicators during an economic downturn are subject to scrutiny more than in any other period. Every time a set of indicators are released, and we have seen several in the past few days, most particularly yesterday with those from the Central Statistics Office, we look at aspects such as the rate of inflation, gross domestic product, gross national product, the level of debt in the country and the bank lending rate but I argue that the statistic to which we should pay most attention, particularly in this period of economic readjustment, is the rate of unemployment. We have come through a period in which employment numbers have increased markedly. The workforce increased from approximately 1.2 million to over 2 million, and has seen a decrease in recent months. There are several factors in regard to that, many of which relate to collapses in the economy, particularly in the amount of employment provided by the construction sector, on which we have learned we were far too reliant in our most recent period of economic prosperity.

This motion is an attempt to encourage all sides in the House to recognise the nature of this problem and discuss the methods needed to counteract it. I welcome the statement by the Leader of the Opposition in Dáil Éireann yesterday about his willingness to act in a collegiate way on it but I do not see much evidence of that in the amendment to the motion, which is more partisan than I would have liked but I will address that later.

My fear in regard to unemployment is that as a country we must avoid the mistakes of the 1980s in particular. The 1980s were the time of my generation. I finished full-time education in 1983. I subsequently went back to education part-time to do another course but for me the period between 1983 and 1989, when I got my first full-time job at the age of 26, consisted of periods of unemployment and, more particularly, employment schemes administered by a number of agencies. In the middle of that decade there were no less than four bodies responsible for redeployment and training of the workforce.

The first job placement I received was from the then National Manpower Service for which I received IR£30 a week, having come off unemployment assistance at IR£33 a week. Other agencies subsequently were involved in a myriad of schemes including teamwork, the social employment scheme, the community employment scheme with bodies like the Youth Employment Agency, what was then AnCO, the three bodies that merged into FÁS and a fourth body which I did not have personal experience of but for which I ended up working subsequently, namely, the National Rehabilitation Board, which also merged with FÁS subsequently. That merger was a mistake because there is always a need for a particular employment response for people with disabilities. The nature of those schemes had two effects, namely, to help with the unemployment figures but, more importantly, to give the participants a sense of self-worth and a curriculum vitae that would allow them compete in a more competitive workforce when the time came to do so.

We are at such a time again and the first rule of thumb should be that where jobs exist they should be protected. Whether they should be protected in all circumstances is a matter for legitimate political debate. When I was entering my early 20s there was a State agency called Foir Teoranta which existed to provide capital for companies to allow them continue in operation and keep their workforces employed. Its rule of thumb was to provide such capital always, regardless of whether such companies were viable or had long-term sustainability. That was the wrong approach but we are in a period where many viable companies are experiencing cash flow difficulties and the problems with the banks are adding to that. There is a need for various measures, whether it is direct Government subvention or funds available through the European Union to make such capital available now to protect existing jobs in the future. That must be done for several reasons, not only to stop the increase in the numbers of unemployed but to keep the value of the experience that exists in such companies experiencing difficulties. My colleague will refer to approaches in other European Union member states and how we can learn from that experience.

The other aspect is to provide money for retraining and redeployment. The Government's efforts in that regard are starting to take effect. The announcement last week about 2,500 places for long-term unemployed people to re-enter the education system is welcome. It could be argued that it is too small-scale, that it is just a start and that we must do this on a far larger scale but we are not only entering a period where the economy is experiencing a massive readjustment but where the new economy we will enter into subsequently will require a whole different skills set. That will require a degree of investment that we must address collectively in the political system.

The final element in terms of maintaining jobs is that we must redefine work. My recollection of the 1980s is the soullessness of unemployment, going to the unemployment exchange and later having the money paid through a local post office and while that diminished a person's worth as an individual, it did not offer any incentive to engage in other activity that did not have a direct economic value but had a value for society.

In addition to an economic approach we also need a social approach to give incentives to people either by way of particular incentives or additional payments through the social welfare system for work being done in the local community in the voluntary sense in particular, whether in providing particular types of social work or working with sporting organisations because there is an unacceptably large mass of people who are capable of providing great worth in our society and whose values as individuals are not being utilised to the fullest extent.

We must also recognise where we stand as an economy with other countries in terms of unemployment. The most obvious example of a more troubled country is Spain. Its economic collapse is similar to ours in that it had a huge reliance on property also but its level of unemployment is now over 4 million, which is 20% of its workforce.

We can even look at those countries that have a more strategic approach towards protecting work such as Germany. The statistics mentioned this week alone show an increase in unemployment in Germany to 8.3%. That country already has strong social protection measures in place which encourage its workers in difficulty to have tripartite arrangements among unions, employers and government to keep jobs in place, either by way of less work time or reduced wages until economic difficulties are overcome.

The purpose of the motion is to try to get across the message that we must first recognise the scale of our problem, work in a collective way to deal with it and use the potential, which is a difficult word to use in the context of such a large group of people, in making sure the mistakes made previously, particularly in the 1980s, are not repeated. It is a cliché that history is repeated and we never seem to learn from it but we are in a better position now in that we have achieved higher levels of economic wealth and even though that wealth has been markedly reduced in the past 18 months it is still a level of prosperity that as a country we have never experienced previously and which is still far higher than our previous periods of economic downfall. I hope the statement made by the Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil yesterday was made on those terms.

To return to the amendment, I would like to hear from those who will speak to the motion shortly the reason they framed an amendment that seems to mirror their own jobs document. The magic figure of 100,000 jobs is repeated like a mantra as if by doing that it will happen. The seriousness of the current position means we must offer people real prospects in terms of what needs to be done, how it can be done and when it will be done. Simply repeating the figure of 100,000 jobs does not mean it will happen. I would be more encouraged if political parties published documents relating to employment potential promising 63,594 jobs. The whole idea of magic numbers adds to people's cynicism about politics and public life and politics' ability to tackle real problems.

The statement made by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday contained a realisation that our current difficulties cannot be dealt with by the normal mechanisms. If the Green approach to economics and politics is different from that of other political parties it is because it is based on a consensual model. Others may, cynically, ask what we are doing in Government and why we divide this House on a regular basis. The people voted as they did in the 2007 election in an era of full employment when all political parties promised continuing economic growth. We are now in a totally different position. We recognise and acknowledge this problem and seek common approaches to it. That is the level of honesty which people expect of all of us in public life.

Because I was born in the United States, I had an opportunity in the 1980s to emigrate. I chose not to take that opportunity although most of my generation did so. These days, others do not have that option because we live in an international recession where such opportunities do not exist. We cannot expect other people to solve our social, economic and political problems. This is a problem we can only solve now, here and with our own resources.