The Labour Party has said that its new jobs and training initiative could be capable of diverting up to 100,000 people away from the dole queues over the next two years.
Party leader Eamon Gilmore unveiled the party’s priorities for training and employment at a press conference this afternoon.
Under the party’s ten-point plan, some €233 million will be spent to create and protect jobs in the economy over the course of two years.
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.
Mr Gilmore yesterday said that the country’s economic crisis was a jobs crisis and that the creation of employment needed to be a priority for Government in the Budget.
“Every person who becomes unemployed represents a €20,000 annual cost to the Exchequer, between social welfare payments and lost taxes,” he said.
The number of new places in education and training that the party has budgeted for is 28,800 and is also proposing that up to 30,000 graduates can take part in a new ‘trainee’ or ‘intern’ scheme that would 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, it also argues.
While at least some of the measures will temporality protect workers and graduates the party says the potential for creating full-time jobs is significant but does not specify the number.
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 ten ideas to foster skills and to create jobs.
It calls on the Government to redraw the National Development Plan to priorities labour-intensive projects; particularly school buildings.
A new scheme should be put in place, it continues, that would exempt employers creating new jobs from PRSI for 18 months.
The third measure is to reduce the cost of doing business, in limited cases, by introducing price controls.
The document also suggests a new ‘earn and learn’ scheme, which would allow employees work part-time and attend educational courses for the rest of the week.
One of the major new ideas is a graduate and apprentice placement scheme, where they could work as ‘interns’ for six months, earning a trainee salary.
The sixth measure is a reduction for the qualifying period to three months for the back to work and back to education allowances.
Labour also wants the Government to lift the cap on the number of places in colleges of further education from the current 30,000 places.
The document also argues that literacy should also be a priority and that those who lose or leave jobs to return to full-time study should be entitled to claim tax back.
The final aim would be to create a “skills exchange” within the existing FÁS and VEC structures, where those with skills could pass them on by training other people.
The party’s enterprise spokesman Willie Penrose said the ideas put forward in the ten-point plan showed that Labour was thinking ‘outside the box’ and had novel suggestions to get people back into jobs.
Education spokesman Ruairí Quinn said that 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 party-time work for teachers who would otherwise be facing unemployment upon graduation,” said Mr Quinn.