Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am referring to the notes that the Minister supplied.

The plays of Tom Murphy have such resonance for today's audiences because they deal with the disease of emigration. There is no acknowledgment that emigration has played an important part in the falling unemployment rates. According to the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, the Government is failing to address youth emigration adequately or to support the needs of young people who are leaving the country in search of work. This makes the Government amendment dispiriting. A poll of 1,003 people carried out by RedC on behalf of the NYCI found that one in four people had a close family member emigrate in the past two years. Half of all people aged between 18 and 24 years and still living in Ireland have considered emigrating while four out of ten people aged between 25 and 34 years have considered moving abroad. Some 41% of those considering emigration stated that they would leave because they were unemployed. When asked whether the Government was addressing the issue of youth unemployment adequately, 83% disagreed and 85% replied that not enough was being done to tackle the problem of youth emigration. This proves my point about the Government's amendment to the Sinn Féin motion.

In a separate report, the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, presents a similar and equally disturbing picture. It points out the recession's negative impact on the young, who have been most deeply affected by the jobs crisis. The national unemployment level remains close to 15% while the youth unemployment level is just below 30%, albeit depressed by emigration. In Limerick, the figure is 50%, which is just above Donegal's figure of 49% and Wexford's figure of 47%. What emerges from this report is the high price paid by the younger age groups for the financial crash and the necessary ensuing fiscal adjustment. The high rate of youth unemployment risks the creation of a jobless generation with worrying social consequences.

The UN's most recent report on world youth unemployment reads: "With almost 74 million people in the 15 to 24 age group unemployed around the world, translating into a 12.4 per cent unemployment rate for this subset, job prospects for the world's younger workers are looking increasingly bleak". We understand that this is not a national-----