Richard Boyd Barrett Urges New Deal to Prevent Mass Unemployment

Taoiseach, I want to urge the Government and indeed this House to immediately start working on a new deal for workers who are facing the prospect of protracted or long-term unemployment. I hear Pascal Donoghue had briefed the Greens and Fianna Fáil about potential economic devastation, return to a 1980s-style depression with long-term unemployment. Now, I do not think we should sit back like astrologers and wonder which way the stars are moving or which way the wind is blowing, but I think we need to proactively act to ensure we do not return to a period of mass protracted unemployment. That we need a new deal for workers, we need to be ambitious, we need to think outside the box to ensure that people get back to work, have decent incomes and that people are not thrown on the scrap heap. Arts workers, in the foreseeable future, live entertainment is in deep trouble. That's the reason I asked for the debate tonight. We need answers for workers in the arts. We need answers for taxi drivers, 20,000 of whom have had their industry decimated and where, for the foreseeable future, that is likely to be the case. 2,000 Debenham workers thrown on the scrap heap by a cynical company, but this could be the first of many who will face that situation. Driving instructors, driving instructors, how are we going to do driving tests or driving lessons in the foreseeable future, and many, many others. So, I believe that this House has to act urgently to work on a new deal for these workers, and I think this relates to the issue of the COVID committee indeed. We cannot wait for weeks for these discussions to happen. We need committees set up immediately to discuss and bring in people from these affected sectors to hear from them. We got it wrong on childcare because we didn't listen to the childcare providers. We need the Debenhams workers in here next week to hear from them. We need to hear from the arts workers. We need to hear from the taxi drivers. We need to hear from the driving instructors. We need these people in here to help guide us as to how we are going to prevent a return to mass unemployment and develop a new deal that ensures that that doesn't happen. So, I would like to hear the Taoiseach's response to that, but we really have to respond and not let ourselves return to a period of mass sustained unemployment. There are things we agree on, and I think one of the things that we agree on is the best economic policy and the best social policy is high levels of employment and full employment where that can be achieved. That's the best economic policy. It's also the best way to reduce poverty and to reduce disadvantage, and the best new deal for people who have lost their jobs is job creation. And one thing the new government, and this government for so long as it lasts, will have to do is to make sure that we create new jobs, whether that's through public investments, the likes of which Deputy Ryan spoke about earlier, whether it's through private investment, and we need to make sure that we continue to be a country that is a good place in which to do business, or whether it's through foreign direct investment, which creates really good jobs and really well-paid jobs and pensionable jobs and secure jobs. We also need to make sure that we as a country get our fair share and more than our fair share of foreign direct investment in the years ahead. So job creation policies are essential. What's essential as well is education and retraining opportunities, because economies are always changing. And this pandemic will cause our economies, not just here, but across the world to change and change quickly and dramatically. So we need to make sure that we quickly institute programs to allow people to return to education, to allow people to engage in training, particularly for those jobs that are going to exist in the future. And nobody knows that for sure. You might call it astrology, but people can only surmise or estimate as best as possible what the economy will look like in the future. But I think it's reasonable to say that there will be a lot more jobs in care. There will be more jobs in the public service. There will be more jobs in construction, for example. There will probably be fewer jobs in retail and perhaps in transport and the entertainment sectors because of the way our economy is going to change, not just here, but across the world. And we need to think about that and make sure that we prepare people and educate them and train them for those jobs of the future in our new environment, which will be a green recovery, but also a digital recovery. And that will have impacts on some jobs that may cease to exist. And it has been done before. When the party that I lead came onto these benches in 2011, we had 15% unemployment and over 30% youth unemployment. As recently as February 29th of this year, we were very close to full employment. It can be done and we will do it again. We will do it again.