Unemployed have mixed views on prospects from initiative

VIEW OF JOBLESS:CO CLARE native Martin McCarthy, who has been out of work for "just about a year", describes the jobs initiative as "comprehensive" but questions how much of it will actually be implemented.

“I’ve just heard so many government plans to tackle unemployment and so many have just been paying lip-service.”

His last job was in customer support and logistics at a major manufacturing firm in Dublin.

“The promises of more funding for training and work experience are good, but I know from experience Fás has a tendency to shunt people into courses that might not be suitable.”

He would like to have seen more for entrepreneurs or people with good business ideas. “I think there are a lot of people with ideas, such as in the food sector, who just need a bit of help getting their business up and running.

“I am still fairly optimistic about finding work. The hardest thing I suppose is not knowing what to do or where the country is going. I have contemplated emigrating.”

John Egan (58) has been unemployed for 12 months and is no more optimistic today about finding work than he was before the plan was published. Living in rural Co Roscommon, he is “quite disillusioned”. He had worked as a general operative for 35 years.

“I am looking to get back into the workforce. I’ve tried to get training on computers with Fás and the courses keep getting put off. I’ve done interviews for jobs and CE schemes and none have got back to me.”

He said: “What I’d want is a one-stop shop where you can walk in and there is information on your entitlements, they’d have a data-base of employers and a record of your skills that could all be matched up.”

Sceptical of the planned provision of work experience places, he sees these as “exploitation” where people will be made to work for low wages. “To be honest I think most of it is a rehash of what is already there. I don’t think it will benefit on the ground here.

Jerry Rock, manager of Drogheda Local Employment Service , said he hoped the incentives to employers, such as the cut to PRSI, would “actually be enough for them to offer work”.

“All the training in the world won’t help if there aren’t jobs to go into.”