Saturday, November 21, 2009 Previous editions
Thursday, November 05, 2009
The Government set up a task force in January of this year to tackle unemployment. It consists of officials from a number of Government departments, along with nominees from various elements of the social partnership.
But relations between the Government and the unions have been so strained over tackling public sector pay that the task force has only met once. Members of the task force were essentially asked to do one job and while they have been dithering, thousands have lost their jobs. This is an outrage.
Instead of dithering itself, the Government should have established a new task force with people committed to trying to do something about growing unemployment. In September the Taoiseach told the Dáil in a written reply that future meetings of the task force would be convened "as necessary".
The whole thing exhibits a frightening lack of commitment, especially with unemployment now standing at 422,500 or 12.5%. The latest figures show a marginal improvement of some 3,000 fewer people on the live register, but there is no room for complacency.
The improvement is due to people returning to education, or leaving the country to find work. Tens of thousands of immigrants have returned to their home countries after losing their jobs.
While the latest figures indicate that the recession is over in the European Union as a whole, we are still only talking about how to tackle our problems, which appear to be getting worse. The OECD forecast that the Irish economy will shrink by 2.4% in 2010, whereas it has previously been predicting a 1.5% contraction.
Fitch, the international credit rating agency, has again lowered this country rating from AA+ to AA-, due to the economic downturn. The country already lost its AAA rating last April. All this means that it is more expensive to borrow money from abroad.
Angel Curria, secretary general of the OECD, suggested that the Government needs to move aggressively and decisively in addressing our problems in order to convince international rating agencies that there is a plan here to put the economy back on a proper footing.
It is not only necessary to convince the international agencies that the Government is taking effective action, it is even more important to convince the Irish people that members of the Government actually know what it is doing.
For over a year they have been promising to do something, but those assigned to suggest a way forward on the unemployment front are not even talking to each other. There is still no coherent policy in place to tackle the economic crisis. What we have been witnessing has been procrastination not leadership.
"Let them eat cake," Marie Antoinette is infamously reputed to have said on the eve of the French Revolution when told that the poor people of Paris did not have bread. Our government seems to be suggesting that the Irish people should survive on empty promises.
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