Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and wish her continued success in her very serious responsibility. Despite the improvement and stabilisation of the economic system in our country, there is a very serious crisis in the number of people unemployed. We seem to be immune to the 13.4% of unemployed people and the increasing number of long-term unemployed. On Saturday, 14 September I attended the Career Zoo recruitment event at the Convention Centre in Dublin. Leading companies such as Amazon, Accenture, AOL, Boston Scientific, Facebook and many others were in attendance as well as leading Irish colleges such as Dublin Institute of Technology, DIT, and the National College of Ireland. Springboard and Skillnet were also represented, two admirable schemes. There are 3,000 jobs available but we have not got the people to fill those jobs. That is the tragedy.

We have a very high unemployment rate, which would be far more serious if we did not have 245 people emigrating per day. Many people want to emigrate, including members of my family, who want to be in the United States, Singapore or wherever, but there is a bitterness in society among grandparents. I find that very moving because we had that in the 1980s with so many people emigrating, as the Minister will remember. Some returned but many did not, so grandparents were deprived of the relationship with their grandchildren and vice versa. Any of us who knew our grandparents know they are a major influence on our lives.

After speaking to the people at Career Zoo, we are not getting the message across. As a business person I find it very frustrating that people have to upskill to get the available jobs. This is going on and on. The pace of catching up and upskilling is far too slow. There is a mismatch between the market and the demand for highly-skilled graduates in IT, finance and a wide range of subjects. We are not meeting that demand. The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs spelled out the same. We had the winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in the House a year ago and I drew his attention to this matter of 3,000 jobs being available. We do not have the graduates with the multilingual skills.

There is a kind of lethargy about solving the problem. As I said numerous times in our party, there is a lack of political drive for the Minister, not the Department officials, to resolve the problem. Maybe it should be opened up to the private sector to resolve the problem. Having established Lir Chocolates during the last recession, when we had 40% unemployment in some parts of the country, I saw the physical and emotional transformation in a person when he or she got a job. It is a major responsibility on the shoulders of the Government to deal with this in a more proactive manner. Projects such as the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, Skillnets and Momentum are admirable but there must be a passion about resolving this 13.4% unemployed rate and the increasing number of long-term unemployed, which has terrible, debilitating effects on their families and themselves.

We must take into consideration the view of the OECD and the EU. In its report in September the OECD said: "Ireland's long-term unemployed are at risk of becoming permanent casualties of the recession as new and better qualified jobseekers take advantage of the recovery." The OECD report showed that one in five children live in households where nobody works. This is the highest proportion in the EU, indicating serious risk of the persistence of social exclusion. Pathways to Work 2013 has some impressive headline goals. Unfortunately the Government's record in implementing these goals in previous plans has not been good, as outlined in the OECD and EC reports.

There must be a much more aggressive response to solving this problem. The OECD report stated:

Decisive interventions in the labour market are needed to avoid the unemployment rate remaining high for many years to come. Higher aggregate demand and job creation are essential for bringing down unemployment but they will not be sufficient. Decisive interventions in labour market policies are needed to avoid the unemployment rate remaining high, risking a rising structural unemployment rate which would hamper growth and exacerbate inequality and social exclusion.

The European Commission report this year stated that progress has not been sufficiently fast and more needs to be done. Delays have been experienced in some other priority areas for structural reform. The Commission went on to say the pace of reforms and resources mobilised are, at times, insufficient given the scale of the situation. It also criticised the lack of case workers to help the unemployed, rapid decision making and attention to upskilling young people and the long-term unemployed.

I accept that the Minister is doing her best and that she is first-class, but when young people seek advice on where they should go for jobs, they only have a couple of minutes with a career adviser. It is not good enough that she hopes to be on top of the problem by Christmas. If this was a private business dealing with an issue that had arisen, it would be working on a 24-7 basis until it was resolved. There is a psychological distance between the Government and the reality of unemployment. Having seen how people can transform when they find jobs, I want to see greater passion. I am not blaming the Minister because she must contend with a traditional bureaucracy that works at a different tempo in solving problems. I know exactly how this works because when we were in government, we had experience of blockages in the bureaucratic system.

Every day 245 people emigrate. The unemployment rate is 13.4% and the number of long-term unemployed is on the rise. The Minister should be attending meetings of the four man economic council that is running the country, given the serious nature of her responsibilities. Approximately 10,000 people attended the career guidance fair in the Convention Centre. The fair was aimed at professionals and those with graduate skills. Some 3,000 jobs are available, but we have to be faster in upskilling people to fill these vacancies. I do not have a problem with the fact that people are coming here from abroad to work in PayPal because of its requirements for individuals with linguistic skills. Cross-fertilisation of ideas and people coming here from abroad enhance all of us. However, we also want to look after our own people. It is disturbing that the Government thinks it is great that the unemployment rate has fallen to 13.4% and it is irritating that it gets excited about a growth rate of 0.4%. It claims that we have turned the corner based on an increase in one quarter, while overlooking the overall trend.

I speak as a former employer and a current board member of Lir Chocolates which I set up to create employment. I had never heard of the word "profit". I got pleasure from creating jobs and I am still on a mission to do this. On 12 December I will be hosting a conference in Dundrum Town Centre on revitalising the reatail sector.