The Taoiseach has assured the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed that he is personally committed to making the problems of the long-term unemployed a priority.
Speaking at the INOU annual conference yesterday, Mr Ahern said there were 40,000 people out of work for three years or more, and these could not be ignored. "I personally believe there have to be more resources directed at this category than at other people," he said.
He was responding to criticisms made by the INOU about the Budget and the Employment Action Plan announced by the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, that the needs of the longterm unemployed were being neglected. Mr Ahern said he knew the INOU was unhappy about these developments and had raised them with him already through the social partnership process.
There was "room for differences between the closest of partners", he said. "It's for me to listen, understand and reflect on what has been said."
He also defended the Government's overall strategy on job-creation and said the monthly unemployment figures, out yesterday, would show the lowest total for seven years. He pointed out that an analysis of long-term unemployment figures showed the number in this category had dropped by 17 per cent in the 12 months to April 1997.
Responding to the Taoiseach, the INOU general secretary, Mr Mike Allen, said that in 1847 the British government had declared the Potato Famine over and abolished the reliefs put in place to help the victims. Ireland was now emerging from a 14-year jobs famine and "not one day passes without some economist, media figure or business person claiming we have reached full employment".
But those 14 years had "shattered many local communities, just as it shattered many families and individuals within those communities. It will take much careful nursing to bring those communities back to health."
EU figures showed that only one in five of those actively seeking work in Ireland found it within 12 months. This was the lowest success rate for job-seekers in Europe.
The Government had three choices for dealing with the problem. It could threaten to take away people's incomes if they failed to "pull themselves together after years on the dole and take the jobs on offer". It could declare the jobs famine over and leave the casualties to look after themselves, or it could get individuals and communities to rebuild their lives around the new surge in employment.
He said tax reform and a minimum wage were crucial steps in this process. But it was about more than money. "It is about the respect that employers show their workers, it is in training and promotion prospects, it is about the right to be represented by a trade union," he added.
Meanwhile, the Dublin Inner City Partnership announced yesterday that 70 extra jobs were being created in the "social economy" locally. This brings the total number of such jobs to 300. The new jobs, which are FAS-funded, will last three years, and participants will be paid £10,000 a year. The jobs are in areas such as child care, elder care, youth work and environmental improvement.