Carthy launches comprehensive Sinn Féin proposals to tackle youth unemployment

(Cllr. Kathleen Funcion, Kilkenny; Senator Pearse Doherty, Donegal; Cllr. Matt Carthy, Monaghan and Cllr. Cathal King, Dublin at the launch of Sinn Féin's proposals to tackle youth unemployment)

South Monaghan Sinn Féin Councillor, Matt Carthy, has, in the past week, launched a comprehensive party policy document which he claims the government should implement if it has any desire to tackle youth unemployment. At the launch, held in Buswells hotel in Dublin, Cllr. Carthy was joined by Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty and other Councillors who, together with other young party activists and officials, have drafted and developed the document entitled: “No Job? No Future? No Way!” Speaking at the launch Cllr. Carthy said that, if implemented, Sinn Féin’s proposals would get 50,000 people under the age of twenty-five off the dole immediately and create many more jobs in the years ahead. The proposals include a specific youth jobs fund, measures to facilitate self employment and a specific focus on growth sectors such as digital media, tourism, green jobs and agri-food.

Cllr. Carthy said:

“If action is not taken to tackle Ireland’s soaring youth unemployment, and soon, there will be huge implications for the economy and for society into the future. But the government has no strategy to keep young people in Ireland and to use their skills to rebuild the economy. It has no vision for the future. They are hoping that emigration will hide the true extent of unemployment amongst the young. It is clear that the Government’s decision to cut youth dole payments was done to encourage young people to leave Ireland.

“The fact is that there are many measures that the government could be implementing to tackle youth unemployment. Sinn Féin is presenting these solutions and we are determined to campaign for their implementation.

“We cannot sit on our hands and see the best minds of this generation of young people wasted or exported. If we are to rebuild a sustainable and vibrant economy these are the people who will do it. The young unemployed must be given the opportunity to work and to use their skills and education.

“Investing in tackling youth unemployment now will pay dividends well into the future. In my own county of Monaghan we already know the negative impact in having a significant proportion of our youth population living and working outside of the county as this was the case even during the years of the so-called Celtic Tiger. We simply cannot afford for it to be exacerbated by a Fianna Fáil government who has so little concern for young people in general and County Monaghan in particular” he said.

Sinn Féin’s proposals include:

• A youth jobs fund to create 20,000 new jobs at a cost of €500 million;
• An individual plan for the long term prospects of every person under 25 who is on the live register;
• 2,000 places on a ‘One More Language Scheme’ to give the young unemployed a chance to learn an extra foreign language at a cost of €20million;
• 5,000 free ECDL advanced places at a cost of €25 million;
• 10,000 new CE places at a cost of €168 million;
• 1,000 places on conversion courses at third level to help graduates convert their skills to potential growth sectors at a cost of €15 million;
• 8 measures to treble the number of under 25’s who are self employed including a national entrepreneurship programme, access to credit and greater support for high potential start ups;
• Create a publicly owned green tech firm for Ireland and initiate a major drive to attract FDI in renewable energy at a cost of €100 million;
• Make Ireland a digital media leader through support for skills, infrastructure and entrepreneurship;
• A ‘National Development Scheme’ to employ people directly on public works projects employing 2,000 workers at a cost of approx €100 million;
• Lift the suspension on the early farm retirement scheme to make farming an option for younger people.

Cllr. Carthy continued: “Our proposals show that it is possible to beat youth unemployment with imaginative thinking and a political commitment. This has been completely absent from the Government’s approach to the jobs crisis.”

The full details of the Sinn Féin plan to tackle youth unemployment can be accessed at the party’s website at www.sinnfein.ie or by contacting the Monaghan constituency office at 047-82917.

Sinn Féin Ard Fheis calls for radical action to create jobs

Among the key themes at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis was the need to create jobs and rejuvenate the economy. Delegates endorsed detailed policy proposals aimed at getting Ireland back to work. Speaker after speaker highlighted the failures of the current Fianna Fáil/ Green Party government but also the policies of Fine Gael which were described as no different to the positions of the current government.

Speaking live on RTÉ and BBC on Saturday morning Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin argued the need for the protection of public services from cutbacks and the need to integrate public services North and South.

He said: “Public Services are under attack because Fianna Fáil-led Governments by their bad policies and bad management over the past 12 years have bankrupted the economy. And how are they trying to fix it?

“Not by calling to account the bankers and developers and property speculators and the so-called regulators who caused it. Not by making the wealthy pay their fair share.

“No, the Fianna Fáil solution is to slash the wages of low paid workers, slash social welfare and slash public services. Public services are being undermined and public servants are being demonised.

“Who are these public servants? They are the nurses who care for people in hospital and in the community. They are the teachers who teach our children. They are the firefighters and gardai who protect our communities. They are the workers who keep our water flowing and our streets clean.

“In the past year as recession deepened and as the Fianna Fáil/Green Government cut savagely into our public services, Sinn Féin representatives in the Oireachtas, on local authorities and in our communities have been battling side by side in solidarity with all those who are determined to maintain vital public services.

“We have highlighted the heartlessness of a Government that could take €8.50 per week out of the pockets of people who are caring for elderly or disabled relatives in their homes. We have opposed the plans of a Government that wants to fatally damage our health services by taking a further 1,100 acute hospital beds out of the system in 2010. We have stood against a Government that trumpets its commitment to education but that condemns children to learn in pre-fabs and takes support away from children with special needs.

“But we have done more. We have presented our real, viable alternatives, based on fairness, efficiency and the delivery of better services to the people. And those services will be delivered better also on an all-Ireland basis. We must end the duplication of Departments and agencies and systems on this small island and integrate our public services” he concluded.

NAMA

Later on Saturday Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin led the party’s charge against NAMA stating: “There is no doubt about who Fianna Fáil and the Greens are serving with NAMA. It is a bailout for the greediest and the most corrupt in Irish society.

“Throughout the so-called Celtic Tiger years, Fianna Fáil-led Governments pampered this elite group. They allowed them to benefit from massive tax breaks at unknown cost to the State. They allowed them to determine the State’s housing policy – a policy which was no policy but to let the market drive everything. And it drove property prices to unreal and unsustainable levels and drove the economy over a cliff.

“It drove a frenzy of greed for property, inducing many who could not afford to do so, to borrow to buy in the grossly inflated market. It drove debt to levels previously unknown in this country. It was fuelled by cheap loans supplied by a banking system corrupted by the culture of greed that saw massive salaries, bonuses and perks lavished at all senior levels in the financial institutions.

“Who are the biggest losers in all of this? Not the bankers and the property speculators who did the crime because they will never do the time. Not the politicians who facilitated them because no-one in Fianna Fáil or the PDs and now the Green Party ever admit any responsibility for anything and they are never made to pay the price for their disastrous policies and disastrous management.

“No, the real losers in all of this are the hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs, they are the families saddled with massive mortgages for whom the fear of losing their homes is a constant in their daily lives, they are the lower and middle income earners who are being punished by savage Budget cuts, they are the young with no prospects of work at home, the carers and cared for, the children with special educational needs and the blind. In this society today people are forced to pass on a doctor’s visit or on their medication because they have to meet other pressing needs for themselves and their families.

“The restructured banking sector envisaged by Sinn Féin goes far beyond just restoring normality to the system. There was nothing normal about a sector that systematically overcharged customers, was complicit in tax evasion and routinely withdrew access to financial services from working class and rural areas because of profit pursuit. As well as intense regulation of the sector, Sinn Féin wants to see a banking system that contributes to the greater good of an economy that serves society as a whole. We also want to see all those who participated in and encouraged the practices that brought about the current crisis held to account and criminal convictions pursued” he said.

McCarthy Report

In his remarks North Monaghan Councillor, Brian McKenna said that the government has no mandate to implement the McCarthy report. “Fianna Fáil were elected on promises of lower taxes and higher spending while the Green Party were elected on a promise of delivering world peace” he joked.

“Since then we have seen broken promise after broken promise. In County Monaghan we have seen the removal of hospital services and the slashing of community funding right across the board. The McCarthy report is being implemented by stealth.

“Across this state we are seeing the outworking of a report that was drafted by right-wing economists at the behest of a right wing government. Any further implementation of the McCarthy report will devastate healthcare for the sick, education for children, care for older people and social supports for all those who need them.

“Having refused to accept responsibility for the economic recession which was caused by its policies, the Government is now using the McCarthy report as the basis for cuts that will hit the most vulnerable the hardest. At the same time it is trying to claim credit when it does not implement some of the harshest measures.

“This Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government have no mandate to implement any such programme. Therefore it should put this programme before the people in a General Election. Let the Government parties and indeed all parties set out their plans to address the economic crisis and let the people decide” Cllr. McKenna stated.

Education

During the education section County Monaghan schoolteacher, Enda Tourish outlined the implications that government cutbacks have already had on the education of young people. He also outlined the anger felt by many teachers at the manner in which wage cuts have been implemented by the government. “Teachers and children and others who provide and use public services are the people who are paying the heaviest price of Fianna Fáil in power” he said.

Providing an effective opposition

Speaking at the Ard Fheis South Monaghan Councillor, Matt Carthy, stated that it was Sinn Féin alone who would represent the needs of those people who were let down by Fianna Fáil over the past decade.

He said: “Unemployment, poverty, emigration and partition are realities for this generation just as they were for our counterparts in the thirties, the fifties, the eighties.

“And why are we back to this point? Because the same politics, implemented by the same parties, continues to dominate this state.

“We have a government that refuses to stand up to the vested interests that created an economic crisis; that forces hundreds of thousands of young people to live in poverty or to move abroad. A government that bails out the banks but shrugs as they tell local communities ‘the money’s just not there’.

“And standing in the wings, ready to take power simply because people are so fed up with Fianna Fail are Fine Gael and Labour.

“We don’t have to wait until they’re in power to know they will be no different.

“When Fianna Fáil were privatising state assets, crippling broadband provision, wiping out the Irish sugar industry and costing thousands of Irish jobs in companies like Aer Lingus– Fine Gael supported them.

“When Fianna Fáil cut the wages and living conditions of the low paid and the unemployed – Fine Gael promised they could do worse.

“And while Fianna Fáil have gutted services from hospitals such as in Monaghan – Fine Gael have said they will not restore them.

“These parties don’t represent the young unemployed or family farmers, or low paid workers or are those who want to see a United Ireland.

“In Sinn Féin we know whose side we’re on and we don’t care if the media, or big business, or the cosy political cartel don’t like it.

“We’re on the side of jobs for our young people. We’re on the side of fair play for local communities. We’re on the side of a health service that doesn’t care how much money is in your bank account.

“Put simply, we’re on the side of the Irish people so let’s take that message to the country.

“Ireland, now, more than ever needs a strong Sinn Féin. Let us go into our communities and deliver just that”.

Savage budget from an economically illiterate Government – Ó Caoláin

Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD has described today’s budget as a savage budget from an economically illiterate Government.
Speaking this evening Deputy Ó Caoláin said:
“This is a savage budget, an economically illiterate budget and a budget that attacks low and middle income earners.
“The Minister told us the worst is over. Tell that to the families whose Child Benefit has been cut tonight. Tell it to the unemployed young people whose welfare has been cut by half.
“This Budget is anti-children, anti-young people and anti-jobs.
“The most vulnerable are being punished for the sins of the very wealthy and their political cronies in this Government who have wrecked the Irish economy.
“This Budget imposes prescription charges for medical card holders, it increases the threshold for the Drug Payment Scheme, meaning sick people will have to pay more for their medicines.
“Not only is there no jobs strategy in this Budget, it is anti-jobs because it takes many millions out of the pockets of ordinary families and out of the economy.
“The Minister spoke of the last big push and a return to growth. He is deluding himself and trying to delude the people. We have over 423,000 people unemployed, an increase of over 146,000 in one year. Many of these are young people and he is cutting their payments to €100 per week.
“There was an alternative approach for this Government to take which was put forward by Sinn Féin. It was an alternative which would have seen the economy on the road to recovery based on fair and equitable measures. Instead what we got was a savage budget from an economically illiterate Government that can only lead to further ruin.”