My column in The Kerryman. 17 April, 2013
I grew up during the 80s in Kerry. I was old enough then, to know there wasn’t much in the way of work and that a lot of people relied on the dole. I also knew I had a lot of relations who had been forced to emigrate in search of work. Every Christmas they would send back parcels of clothes, that very rarely fit. I could never understand how the Americans got to grow so big.
I wasn’t old enough to know if money was being sent back, but we do know that millions of dollars was sent to the families left behind by emigrants. Often this was all that kept a family afloat during the many recessions this country has endured. During the ‘boom’ we thought those days were forever behind us. So far behind us that men and women from all the world flocked to these shores, so that they too could send money back to their relations.
Unfortunately the boom was so shockingly mismanaged our sons and daughters are again leaving Ireland to find work. Once again many of those left behind are existing on the dole. So many men and women who were once working, now have mortgages, have children in school, have ambition, but are forced to take the help of social welfare for their needs and the needs of their family.
Having been on the dole twice in the last 20 years, I know how entirely powerless one can feel, when one is relying on strangers for just enough money to get through the week. But I certainly don’t know what it’s like to be on the dole and have a family to support and a mortgage to pay. That kind of nightmare has fortunately never visited me.
I also don’t know what it’s like to be classed as ‘long-term unemployed’ which means being unemployed for over a year. Where does one find the discipline to maintain a routine, when one is unemployed for that length of time? Yet 44% of our unemployed family members, friends and neighbours, are now in that situation.
Worse, many of them have skills which are no longer needed in our economy. A lot of the jobs being created these days require language skills and computer skills that too many of our unemployed people just don’t have. Companies from all over the world, attracted by our favourable tax regime, set up shop and then have to import qualified workers to fill the many vacancies they are creating.
These new people enrich our state and our culture, but having to attract workers from outside Ireland doesn’t do much to address the immediate problem of our near 15% unemployment. Students are doing their bit by increasingly applying for the kind of courses our economy now needs, but they are at least four years away from being suitably trained.
So what now for the men and women trying to survive on social welfare? It seems sympathy for these victims of the political mismanagement of our economy, is already on the wane. Our government beats the drum of welfare reform, while helping politicians to pay for their constituency offices.
If there is one thing unemployed people can do to help themselves, is realise that any group with nearly half a million members, is a group with a lot of power. Pensioners realised this years ago. It’s about time unemployed people copped on to this as well.