Fine Gael councillor Jarlath Munnelly has called on the Government to expand community employment schemes to provide employment opportunities for recently unemployed people. The Fine Gael councillor made these comments as the number of people out of work continues to grow. Cllr Munnelly said that he was disappointed to see many committed, hard working, people queue up for social welfare assistance, when they would clearly prefer to be contributing to society by working. “I was in Ballina last Wednesday morning, where I was shocked at the length of the queue outside the Social Welfare Exchange in Ballina. Many of the people there were signing on for the first time in their lives. Up until a few weeks ago, some of these people were in well paid jobs, and now, thanks to events beyond their control, they are unemployed. For many, it’s for the first time. This is a poor use of our human resources in this country.”
Cllr Munnelly claimed that if given the chance to join a community employment scheme, many of these people would relish the opportunity to be engaged in some task, or even to retrain. “Given an opportunity to sign up for a community employment scheme, many of the recently unemployed could gain new skills, or work in some beneficial environment. There would be huge societal benefits, for the person on the scheme, and in the work they could do.”
Cllr Munnelly did sound a word of warning, as he claimed that the old system of community employment schemes, as run by FÁS, were not perfect either. “It would be more appropriate for the local authorities, or some other body to run these schemes, because FÁS have proven not to be the most efficient agency in the recent past, and until that organisation is restructured, I would be unhappy with them running such a programme,” he added.
Cllr Munnelly suggested that work could focus on a number of specific areas, including education, healthcare, or working with community groups. He concluded by clearly maintaining that this proposal would work as an interim measure while there is large unemployment, but added that the Government has to work harder to get the country back on track.
