Focus should be on job creation not forcing people into low-paid work and internships
Restore Under 25s Jobseekers payments to full adult rate
Dublin North West Workers’ Party candidate Jimmy Dignam has said governments should focus on the creation of real, sustainable and properly paid jobs instead of the current focus on forcing people into low-paid work and internships.
Jimmy Dignam, WP candidate, Dublin North West
Dignam said that the state must cherish young people, not regard them as a problem. In particular it should ensure that productive and decent jobs are available to give young people a good start, to ensure they do not fall into poverty traps later in life and to give them the opportunity to feel they have a role to play in society.
“The present atmosphere in local employment centres is one of menace and belittlement. Joan Burton’s Department of Social Protection uses insulting terms such as ‘activation’ which suggest that unemployed workers are indolent and in need of activation when the reality is there are no jobs for them. Intreo offices carry signs warning about fraud and against loitering – signs you won’t see in the offices IDA or Enterprise Ireland. This is designed to instil fear into workers and can be particularly intimidating for young workers who have left school full of hope and optimism”, said Jimmy Dignam.
“In reality these measures are a crude mechanism to force people, particularly young workers, into low paid exploitative work, demeaning internships and a whole range of schemes which encourage employers to avail of free staff whose meagre payment is heavily or totally subsidised by the state.”.
“The mantra that it is ‘not the state’s role to create jobs but to create the conditions for private enterprise to do so’ is a cop-out from the states’ bounden duty to create jobs. Time and experience have shown that the private sector will only create employment if it boosts their profits and will do away with it when those profits fall. That is no way to run an economy and the state must become involved directly in job creation through our state and semi-state companies”
“The cutting of Social Welfare payments for under 25s was a deeply discriminatory exercise in austerity and must be reversed. It takes no account of reality and takes away the independence of young people at a time when they should be spreading their wings. In short the idea that economically starving young workers into low paid work is counterproductive and shameful”, said Jimmy Dignam.