THOUSANDS OF those who receive Leaving Cert results today could be left in limbo by the Government’s failure to create employment opportunities and places on training courses, the youth wing of the Labour Party has claimed.
Labour Youth said those not planning to attend college had little to look forward to and faced two major choices – joining the dole queue or emigrating.
“It should be a very happy day for Leaving Cert students, but it won’t be due to lack of opportunity,” Labour Youth chairman Rory Geraghty said during a protest outside the Dáil yesterday.
According to the Central Statistics Office some 92,000 people aged under 25 were unemployed at the end of June. With a further 60,000 students receiving their Leaving Cert results today, Labour Youth fears this number will grow further.
Mr Geraghty said that amid rising unemployment and a surge in numbers returning to college it was unacceptable that the budget for the Department of Education and Science had been reduced this year by some 6 per cent.
He said Government claims about tackling unemployment and retraining those on the Live Register were tokenistic. “The Government needs to put the jobs crisis at the centre of its economic plan. They need to invest money in job creation, reverse cuts at the Department of Education and make sure there is training available for those who need it. We put €22 billion into Anglo Irish. If even a 10th of that went into job-creation thousands of people would be in employment.”
Labour Youth said it would like the Government to commit to using a minimum of €2 billion from the National Pension Reserve Fund to fund job-creation programmes. This could be used to improve broadband infrastructure, fund regeneration projects and for creating social and community work jobs, Mr Geraghty said.
