THE LABOUR Party has claimed that its new jobs and training initiative could divert as many as 100,000 people away from the dole queues over the next two years.
Under the party’s 10-point plan, some €233 million will be spent to create and protect jobs during the period.
The funds will come from the €1 billion in fees being paid by Irish banks and financial institutions to the State for its deposit guarantee scheme.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore unveiled the party’s priorities for training and employment at a press conference yesterday.
“Every person who becomes unemployed represents a €20,000 annual cost to the exchequer, between social welfare payments and lost taxes,” he said.
The party has budgeted for 28,800 new places in education and training and is also proposing that up to 30,000 graduates can take part in a new “trainee” or “intern” scheme to bridge the gap between education and training.
Funding already available for 51,000 extra Fás places should be allocated more flexibly across the education system, the party said.
While some of the measures will give temporary protection to workers and graduates, the party says the potential for creating full-time jobs is significant, but does not specify the number of jobs that will be created.
The prioritisation of National Development Plan funds into job- intensive projects such as schoolbuildings would create thousands of jobs, he said.
Mr Gilmore pointed out that 173,000 extra people had been placed on the Live Register in the past year, a development that has cost the exchequer €3.5 billion in social welfare and lost taxes.
“The most important thing tomorrow is a budget that will create jobs and we want any of the tax measures to be done on the basis of fairness,” he said.
“Jobs and fairness are the two key messages I want to give to the Government on this, the eve of the budget,” he added.
The policy document, entitled Just the Job, comprises 10 ideas to foster skills and create jobs.
The party’s enterprise spokesman, Willie Penrose, said the ideas put forward in the 10-point plan showed that Labour was thinking “outside the box” and had novel suggestions to get people back into jobs. Education spokesman Ruairi Quinn said the placement scheme would be of huge benefit in the education areas.
Young teacher graduates could teach pre-school classes under the supervision of the head teacher, provided the facilities were available in the school.
“That ‘gap’ programme will give an opportunity to get valuable work experience equivalent to part-time work for teachers who would otherwise be facing unemployment upon graduation.”
The main proposals are:
- The National Development Plan to prioritise labour-intensive projects, particularly school buildings.
- A new scheme exempting employers, who create new jobs, from PRSI for 18 months.
- Reduce the cost of doing business and, in limited cases, introduce price controls.
- “Earn and learn” scheme, where employees work part-time and attend educational courses for the rest of the week.
- A graduate and apprentice placement scheme, with “intern” placements on reduced pay.
- Reduction in the qualifying period to three months for the back-to-work and back-to-education allowances.
- Lift the cap on the number of places in colleges of further education from the current 30,000 places.
- Literacy to be a priority.
- Job leavers returning to full-time study should be entitled to claim tax back.
- A “skills exchange”.