Sir, – It is an absolute disgrace that the Irish taxpayer is to fund the Government’s internship programme for unemployed young graduates by paying them welfare benefits plus €50 (Editorial, July 2nd). Are Irish graduates so devoid of initiative and intelligence that they have to be subsidised by the Irish taxpayer into work? Have they not received enough of a subsidy already? Or is it that they are too “good” to do the work that so many immigrants seem to be finding?
Young, unemployed university graduates should have their benefits eliminated. It is shocking that those who have received a university education could possibly be so comprehensively useless that they cannot find themselves a route into work, be it in Ireland or abroad. It is also a disgraceful representation of this generation’s civic values that such numbers of graduates exist who think it is acceptable to graduate and “sign on”, particularly when one considers the impacts that cutbacks in healthcare are having on the sick and the elderly.
These people need to get off the dole queue and give something back to Irish society instead of draining the life out of it. – Yours, etc,