Targeting the unemployed
By Meadbh Gallagher
Mary Harney isn't about to ditch Bertie Ahern. Contrary to Sunday
Independent leading articles about PD plans to stage a walkout on
the back of the Burke scandal, it must be clear today that Mary
has no intention of knocking on doors between now and Christmas.
Harney is digging in for a good old PD revival on the backs of
the unemployed.
The Progressive Democat leader hasn't a hope of getting anything
bigger than a cameo role in another crooked coalition, but she
know the the key to her long term survival is back to basics
campaign, so she's come out all guns blazing at the PD's
traditional target, the unemployed.
All those sweet words about setting her sights on full employment
and a basic minimum wage for the new millennium mean nothing.
Anything that isn't already required under the Partnership 2000
Agreement and under the EU Employment Guidelines just won't
figure.
By her proposal to remove social welfare benefits from unemployed
people judged to have refused offers of work or training, Harney
has scored a direct hit.
New ways will be found to punish the jobless, and a stream of
`job initiatives' whose single innovation will the name change
that will accompany them, will be brought before us.
d Harney will push ahead with the punishment principle, while
Ahern and O'Rouke will sit by and let her take the flak for her
``courage''. The irony is that on the day Harney announced she will
blame the jobless for the lack of jobs, she also had a go at
attacking the dole queues from another angle.
Harney complained that caterers, hotels and restaurants were
recruiting staff from `the Continent' while Irish people were on
the dole. There has to be something wrong, she said. She did not
say what.
There is something wrong when a government which has long since
signed up to freedom of movement within the labour market in the
EU complains when EU workers come here for jobs.
d there's something wrong when a government hearing increasing
business complaints of labour shortages responds by planning
legislation that will heavily penalise employers for hiring
`illegal' immigrants.
The alternative is to welcome immigrants to work here and to
allow asylum seekers to work rather than forcing them to seek
social welfare.
d as Harney knows, the alternative to punishing the jobless is
to provide the right training for the right jobs.
The PD leader has job targets, all right. She knows that the
official jobless rate of over 9% is still twice as high as the
claimed rate in Britain.
To bring down the unemployment rate, more people need to be off
the dole queues. Removing them by threat and penalty is a scheme
that has been tried and tested in Britain. Mary Harney wants to
bring it here.
That's the real agenda of the latest policies on targeting
unemployment.
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