LIMERICK City and Council Councils — the biggest users of the Gateway jobs scheme — have been accused of exploiting the unemployed.
Sinn Fein councillor Maurice Quinlivan this week described the Government’s new initiative as a “sick joke and an insult to the thousands of people currently unemployed in the city and county”.
The Gateway initiative sees claimants who have been on the Live Register for more than a year get an extra €20 per week on top of their jobseekers allowance to work 19 and a half hours for local authorities.
“These positions provide very little training and next to no money. In reality they will undermine the few remaining council workers we have in the city and their rates of pay. You’d expect no less from Fine Gael who make no secret of their ambitions to develop our country as a low wage economy, but for the Labour Party to go along with these plans is truly shameful,” Cllr Quinlivan commented.
Limerick City and County Councils have been allocated 150 positions for the controversial new scheme which will pay unemployed participants €1 an hour on top of their dole entitlements. To date 47 participants have started work with a further 23 due to start this week. While the majority of participants to date have been placed within the county council, the emphasis in the next phase of placements will be in the city areas.
“This Government promised us real action on jobs. What we’re getting instead is a demand that the unemployed work for free. It’s a sick joke and an insult to the thousands of people currently unemployed in the city and county,” said Cllr Quinlivan.
Limerick Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea has also raised serious concerns over whether the new job scheme positions will enhance or improve people’s skills.
“I want to know if this scheme is an active attempt to get people back to work, or if it merely serves as an exercise to move people off the Live Register and massage the figures. The nature of the scheme is poorly defined and its implementation appears haphazard.
“Two years is a long time to be left on a Government enforced scheme, with little or no pay, and questionable chances of improving their job prospects,” said Deputy O’Dea.
However, Labour Party city councillor Joe Leddin was quick to remind Deputy O’Dea of the fact that Fianna Fail left office with the highest unemployment rate in the history of the state at nearly 15 per cent.
“The famous 700 jobs he promised publicly when Dell closed their manufacturing facility never materialised. In fact, Limerick had the worst record of new job announcements during Deputy O’Dea’s time in Government.
“There were over 21,000 out of work in February 2011 when Deputy O’Dea left office. Today, the figure for Limerick City and County is just over 17,000 – still too high but at least a slight improvement,” said Cllr Leddin.
The city councillor also sees the Gateway initiative as facilitating longterm unemployed with the opportunity of gaining work experience and/or further educational opportunities in companies within their locality.
“Those eligible for the scheme can also continue to work part time in other employment if they wish. By engaging people in work experience, they develop new skills meet new people which helps in terms of personal development and future job prospects,” said Cllr Leddin.
As of February 21 last, of the 3,000 placements available through the Gateway scheme nationwide, only 60 had been taken up. Limerick accounted for 47 of these placements.
Last week in the Dáil, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the scheme, which will see people sweeping the streets, cutting grass and directing traffic, creates “so many opportunities” for the unemployed.
Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton TD, was equally enthused. She claims the scheme improves the employability and work-readiness of people by providing “good quality work opportunities with good employers in structured environments”.
The Anti Austerity Alliance, however, don’t agree. They have also criticised the Limerick local authorities for using what they describe as a “slave labour scheme”.
“People will effectively work for €1 an hour. As if this is not sickening enough, unbelievably, the scheme lasts for 22 months! For this €1 an hour they will be asked to work for local councils doing such tasks as working on roads, parks and environmental services,” said AAA election candidate Derrick Towell.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael local election candidate for Limerick City West, Frank Mulqueen, offers a different perspective. Mulqueen considers the Gateway programme as “a real return to community based employment initiatives that will help the long term unemployed return to the labour market through local authority works programmes”.
“This programme takes people who have been unable to find work for over two years and helps them return to gainful unemployment as well as bringing them back in to the PRSI system which unemployment does not offer,” said Mr Mulqueen.
“Having been unemployed in this recession myself, unlike my opponents in Fianna Fail in Limerick City West, their party are failing to grasp that it is a black hole where debts, pressure and sense of bleakness creeps up very quickly on the person.
“This programme tackles those who are two years in this hole with little light at the end of the tunnel. This programme provides an opportunity for the long term unemployed to climb back out and contribute to their local community as well as working and contributing within the PRSI system,” he added.
The local authority have revealed that participants in the Gateway scheme are working at various locations throughout the city and county and are “engaged in a wide range of projects as diverse as community-based environmental improvement works, estate improvement works in local authority estates, cataloging and digitising collections donated to Library Service, IT coding of book stocks, etc”.
Responding to allegations of exploiting the unemployed on the new jobs initiative, Limerick City and County Council’s director of human resources, Jimmy Feane, said that the scheme provides an opportunity for participants to avail of training and up-skilling and will undoubtedly improve their prospects of securing permanent employment with the local authorities themselves.
Mr Feane said that the works being undertaken will not involve core local authority work and do not represent any threat to the existing workforce in the local authorities.
“Our positive view of this scheme can be easily understood when one considers the potential to improve the employment prospects of participants and the value of the works being undertaken to the communities through the city and county,” Mr Feane added.
