Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My point is that it is no country for young men, young women or young families. This comes back to the issue of youth unemployment and to emigration, which was not touched upon. In 2011 alone, 87,000 people left this state and there are 460,000 unemployed.

I agree totally with the professor's point that we have given too much away to fiscal austerity. My party is a firm advocate of that position and is strongly in favour of stimulus. Will the professor give us his opinion of stimulus? My party has proposed consideration of using State resources such as the National Pensions Reserve Fund, examining what the European Investment Bank could offer and erasing cuts to capital budgets. As the professor noted, such investment in infrastructure would return benefits into the future.

The professor laid particular emphasis on frictional employment. In Ireland there has been much structural employment but because of the collapse of the construction sector many thousands lost employment and are in need of upskilling and retraining to adapt to the new needs of the labour market. That collapse had many spillover effects on other sectors, such as retail. Feeding into this problem are the high numbers of young people who are not in education, employment or training. A recent report put this figure at 22% overall for those aged between 15 and 29, which is probably one of the highest levels in Europe. The same report found that the number of long-term unemployed in Ireland has skyrocketed and is now the fourth highest in Europe.