Ivana Bacik

Later today in the Seanad, Senator Ivana Bacik will be raising the issue of the impact of pay cuts upon contract researchers working at third-level institutions, as a matter on the adjournment. 

Senator Bacik will be asking the Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan, to inform the House, with regard to the application of the recent public sector pay cut to contract researchers in third-level institutions, why the European Commission have indicated that they will refuse to make future payments to universities who are not paying Marie Curie Fellows in full. She will also ask the Minister to confirm whether her Department plans to review the situation with regard to Marie Curie Fellows as the funding will otherwise be lost to the universities concerned. 

Speaking on the adjournment, Senator Bacik will say: 

“This is a very topical issue on the day when we see the crisis in third-level funding making headlines. The HEA say that third-level colleges will need 4 billion euro extra in funding to cope with the 55,000 additional students they will be taking in over the next decade.” 

“It seems ridiculous that the Minister’s rigid and inflexible approach to contract researchers will cause colleges and universities to lose valuable research funding. This funding is at risk from external funders like the European Commission, because the Minister will not exempt externally funded third-level contract researchers from the public service pay cuts.” 

ENDS 

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: There was talk yesterday about the need to debate good news so I will begin by welcoming some good news, the fact that the airlines appear to be returning to normal service today with the announcement that the air space over Ireland is open again. That is very welcome. The only unwelcome aspect is that it means emigration will begin again. It has been said that the Icelandic volcano did more to stem the flow of emigrants from Ireland, especially young people who must go abroad to seek jobs, than any Government policy. Indeed, Government policies are to blame for rising unemployment. The Labour Party and other Opposition parties have called previously for an urgent debate on jobs and unemployment. That must take place.

I echo the call of Senators Fitzgerald and O’Toole for a debate on banking. This is a very urgent matter and I support the amendment proposed by Senator Fitzgerald. People are volcanic with anger at the revelations that are made daily about excessive payments to bank officials and the cover-ups that occurred. The front page of today’s Irish Independent shows an e-mail sent in May 2008 to senior bankers within Anglo Irish Bank telling them not to disclose a back-to-back loan that had been obtained from a German bank to make Anglo Irish Bank appear more creditworthy than it was. We are now seeing extensive information about what was really taking place, particularly in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. It requires that we again ask the Government why it passed such a comprehensive bank guarantee scheme in September 2008. The Labour Party was the only party to oppose it and at that time I was the only Independent Senator to oppose it. We were right at the time and we are still right in terms of asking the questions about why that blanket guarantee was given, considering what we know now. We need an urgent debate today on banking in light of these revelations. As Senator Fitzgerald said, there must be serious concern also about the position of public interest directors. A former Fine Gael leader appointed as a public interest director in Anglo Irish Bank now seems to be acting more in the interests of that zombie bank than in the public interest and there are questions about this.

I also ask for a debate on a separate matter, on the rights of families of homicide victims in light of a statement issued during the Easter recess by the association for the truth about the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. That association welcomed the issuing of an arrest warrant in France against an Irish resident. We could learn usefully from some of the French criminal justice procedures in place to assist the families of victims of homicide and of crime in general.

I welcome some aspects of the Government’s amendment to the Private Members’ motion, the Female Genital Mutilation Bill 2010, proposed by the Labour Party. However, 12 months is a very long time to be waiting for this urgent legislation, given that the first specific Act to ban female genital mutilation was passed in the United Kingdom in 1985 and the Labour Party first introduced a Private Members’ Bill in the Dáil in 2001. This delay of 12 months is simply unacceptable. I welcome the Minister’s commitment but we will be pressing ahead with that Bill in the debate.

STATEMENT BY IVANA BACIK

Labour Party Seanad Spokesperson on Justice, Equality and Law Reform
Tuesday, 23rd March 2010

JOBS FOR THE PEOPLE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ‘JOBS FOR THE BOYS’

Speaking today on the Order of Business in the Seanad, Senator Bacik called for an urgent debate on unemployment and job creation, pointing out that:

“With all the political focus on the Cabinet reshuffle and the ‘jobs for the boys’ (and one girl!) in the Green Party, we need to remember that the real issue in Ireland today is jobs for the people. As many thousands face job losses and uncertainty about their continued future employment, generating new ideas and practical solutions to ensure job creation would be far more useful than discussion of Cabinet appointments.

“The minimal changes introduced by the Taoiseach in this reshuffle are more like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, than they are about generating the kind of new thinking and practical policies that might actually help the thousands of people on the Dole and contemplating emigration.”

ENDS

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I will be brief. First, will the Leader confirm we will be having a debate on women’s participation in politics next Tuesday? Second, I support calls for a debate on banking. We need to ask two key questions in this House. Why can Postbank be allowed go to the wall and yet Anglo Irish Bank is apparently of such systemic importance that it must be saved no matter what at enormous cost to the taxpayer? Why are the citizens of Iceland being asked their views on a bail-out for the banks and the citizens of Ireland are not?

Finally, I congratulate Corn Exchange Theatre Company and ask for a debate on theatre funding. Corn Exchange Theatre Company got two awards yesterday — I am a member of its board — yet its funding has been cut by the Arts Council. We need an urgent debate on Arts Council funding and on sufficient funding for the arts.

At 5pm today in the Seanad, Senator Ivana Bacik will propose the Labour Private Members’ Motion which notes with concern the rise in joblessness in Ireland, in particular the rise in youth unemployment, and which calls on the Government to implement a Jobs Strategy, including retraining and back to education support, to tackle this crisis. 

Warning that the consequences of this sharp rise in youth unemployment will be felt for many years to come, Senator Bacik said: 

“We know that over 74,000 people in Ireland under 25 are unemployed – and the CSO Quarterly Household Survey of July 2009 reported that a shocking 36.4% of those aged 15-19, and 23% of those aged 20-24 are in neither full-time education or in employment.” 

“The key issue when we debate the recent rise in joblessness is therefore the generational impact that the current economic crisis is having. We are facing the reality of another ‘lost generation’ in Ireland, as more and more young people are forced to emigrate for work.” 

“The measures that we adopt to tackle unemployment must be targeted at supporting school-leavers and college leavers in re-training, improving their educational and skills levels, and assisting them in getting work. If we speak about unemployment in too general a way, we miss the point – this crisis is disproportionately affecting our 20-something generation. The Labour Youth document ‘Tackling Youth Unemployment’ (Dec 2009) recognises this fact and puts forward innovative proposals to address this serious crisis.” 

ENDS 

Youth Unemployment: Motion.

Senator Ivana Bacik: I move:

That Seanad Éireann notes with concern the rise in joblessness in Ireland, in particular the rise in youth unemployment; and calls on the Government to implement a jobs strategy, including retraining and back to education support, to tackle this crisis.

Senator Ivana Bacik: I wish to propose the motion.

An Cathaoirleach: It has been moved and seconded. If the Senator wishes to speak to it, she has 12 minutes.

Senator Ivana Bacik: By agreement, I will use eight rather than the full 12, as I want to allow colleagues speak also. As Senator McCarthy said, there is nobody present on the Government side of the House to counter the motion we are putting to the House. As a result, I hope the Government will just agree to it, although that is unlikely to happen.

The motion tabled by the Labour Party calls on Seanad Éireann to note with concern the rise in joblessness in Ireland, in particular the rise in youth unemployment, and calls on the Government to implement a jobs strategy, including retraining and back to education support, to tackle the crisis. I welcome the Minister of State and hope the debate will not descend into platitudes. All too often, when we have debated the issue of unemployment in recent months, as we have seen horrific rises and the great human tragedy behind the figures, we have heard platitudes. Everyone on both sides of the House has condemned the rise in unemployment without offering any ideas on how it can be targeted or a real analysis of the figures. Too often the debates have been bland.

I want to change this by focusing on youth unemployment. We need to recognise the generational impact the unemployment figures have. We should move beyond speaking about unemployment, although I do not wish to dismiss the real problem and tragedy of unemployment for those at a later stage in their careers. The figures clearly indicate that the unemployment crisis we face is affecting school and college leavers particularly heavily, people who are seeking to enter the workforce for the first time. Over 74,000 people under the age of 25 years are unemployed. It was reported in a CSO quarterly household survey last year than more than one third of those aged 15 to 19 years and 23% of those aged 20 to 24 years were in neither full-time education nor employment. We are facing the reality of what has been described as a lost generation — a generation of young people for whom their only prospect of getting work lies overseas. Once again, we are facing the spectre that was present when I was in college in 1980s when many had to emigrate to find work. Happily, as things picked up, many of us were able to come back. Without any sign of an upturn on the horizon, it is difficult to see the prospects for so many young people lying at home.

The measures we adopt to tackle unemployment must be targeted at supporting school and college leavers in retraining, improving their education and skill levels and, ultimately, assisting them in finding work. If we speak about unemployment in too general a way, we will miss the point on the need for targeting. Interestingly, there has been more of a debate on this issue in Britain. Two weeks ago an article in The Observer by a young unemployed graduate, Andrew Hankinson, aged 29 years, caused a great impact. He did not pull punches and argued that graduates were picking up the tab for their parents’ lives. The subtext of his article was that baby-boomers took all the good jobs, availed of free education and cheap housing, leaving their kids with nothing but the credit crunch and the bill for their pensions. His anger was focused on an older generation. This clearly expressed the fact that in Britain unemployment figures were particularly high among younger people. The article generated a significant response, mainly from older people who argued they should not be blamed for the recession. I will pick up on some of his points which are pertinent to this country. Ireland is set in a very different context because we had very severe economic problems in the 1970s and 1980s, when the rate of unemployment was much higher than it is now. The older generation did not have it easy and it would be unfair to suggest it did.

There are serious considerations in how we should tackle youth unemployment and focus our economic policies to take account of the generational impact of unemployment. We must remember that a significant portion of the population, largely an older demographic, have paid off their mortgages and are not facing the same massive credit issues as many younger people. We may say it is their own fault as they took out mortgages and bought big cars. I know from canvassing in different areas of Dublin that there are people still in work who are very concerned about their futures as they see jobs being lost through redundancies in the private sector and pay cuts in the public sector. Such persons may have enormous outgoings on mortgages and other loans. They are being squeezed nearly as much as the twenty-somethings who are finding it difficult to find work in the first place.

The idea that events have a different impact on separate generations is recognised in the tourism industry which specifically targets the grey pound or euro. Fáilte Ireland has been offering packages to older tourists, in particular. There is a recognition that younger generations have less disposable income and wealth. It is important we look at this to try to find solutions to the current crisis. For example, there are questions to be asked about reforming tax policies and focusing on assets rather than income. That nettle has not been grasped. As the motion states, a focus on offering educational opportunities to younger people is critical to the solution.

The Government amendment to the Labour Party motion commends the Government on implementing policies and an employment subsidy scheme, etc. There are some impressive figures but the reality is different. The new graduate employment scheme can be condemned as tokenistic. Despite the figures given by the Government in the amendment, we still see very small numbers actually being helped by any of the measures announced by it with great fanfare.

In December Labour Youth produced a very useful document entitled, Tackling Youth Unemployment, in which it brought forward a critique of the Government’s policy, pointing out that although the FÁS work placement scheme for graduates, announced with great fanfare last April, had been a welcome step, only 85 positions out of a potential figure of 2,000 had been taken up, even though nearly 2,000 individuals had applied to take part in the programme. Clearly, there was an inadequate number of placements available. I do not know what the Minister of State will say to me, but there certainly has been a much lower take-up of what was offered. The Government has not put its money where its mouth is in order to attract people back to education, especially part-time courses. If the Government was to expand the scheme of free third level tuition fees to include part-time courses, that would help to ease people back into education and an environment in which they would be likely to gain greater skills. Ultimately, they would become more employable.

The Government could adopt other measures to ensure greater opportunities for young people who are otherwise facing the dole. I urge the Minister of State to look at some of the more radical measures proposed by Labour Youth, especially the removal of tuition fees for part-time education courses, offering real work placement programmes for graduates, addressing the cuts in social welfare payments to young people that will have impacted on them very severely and not ignoring the social impact of unemployment. This applies equally to people of all ages if they are made redundant. There is a serious problem with increasing levels of depression. As such, we need to ensure there are counselling services and social supports available to those who are made unemployed.

While we need to recognise the impact of unemployment on our youth, we should note that those who criticised Andrew Hankinson for blaming the baby boomers pointed out that he should be counting his blessings for having an opportunity to write that article and to work in journalism. However, many others who were very angry responded favourably. One letter writer to the The Observer stated:

The politicians have devastated an entire generation. It was obvious that policies that favoured the financial industry and diminished all else would bring us crashing down — and they did. Get the heck out of England, kids. The wealthy have won; you have been pushed out of your own country.

That expresses the anger felt in Britain and clearly places the focus upon the difficulties for young people. We will also see increasing levels of anger in Ireland among young people who equally feel they are being forced out of this country like previous generations. It is important for all of us on both sides of the House to work together to make sure that does not happen. I, therefore, urge the Minister of State to take on board the more creative solutions and suggestions offered from all sides of the House.

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: Some of my colleagues commented on George Lee’s resignation from the other House. It will be a shame if his decision results in an increase in cynicism about politics. It is a shame he did not give politics longer than eight months. If a week is a long time in politics, eight months is a short time in which to make an impact. The question that must be asked is why he chose this course of action at this time.

I echo the calls of other Senators for a debate on the National Asset Management Agency in the light of news reports on the International Monetary Fund’s view of the agency. On the night the House debated the National Asset Management Agency Bill in the presence of the Minister for Finance Senators considered amendments and went through the legislation section by section. Colleagues will recall that I tabled an amendment aimed at introducing a mechanism along the lines of the French independent ombudsman or mediator. Under the French system, small businesses refused credit by banks on unreasonable and unjustifiable grounds can appeal to an independent mechanism to have the decision overturned. I was reminded of this by news reports on the IMF’s view of NAMA and a newspaper report yesterday on a small bakery business in Dublin city centre which was refused credit by a major bank on what appear to be most unreasonable grounds. This is the type of real human story which should give impetus to calls for the Minister for Finance to come to the House to explain the reason he indicated the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency would result in an increase in credit when the IMF clearly took a different view. Even with the enactment of the legislation and with plans under way for the transfer of assets, small businesses are still being unreasonably refused credit and we still do not have the independent mechanism of an ombudsman or a mediator which I urged the Minister to adopt in my amendment.

I again ask for a debate on the treatment of unaccompanied minors in care. Mr. Philip Garland, the new assistant national director for children and families in the Health Service Executive, made an important point yesterday when he criticised the past policy of the HSE towards such children and suggested the policy towards them may even be regarded as racist. He also accepted that the hostel accommodation provided for such children was inadequate. Having raised this issue previously, I ask for an urgent debate on the matter. More than 500 unaccompanied children have gone missing from HSE care in the past ten years, which is a national disgrace.

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I support Senator Fitzgerald’s call for a debate on the stimulus plan for the economy and jobs, and her call that the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coughlan, should lead the debate in this House. She is one of the Ministers we tend not to see in the House. We see a great deal of some Ministers and very little of others.

… The bad news today is that unemployment figures have reached 13% which makes the need for such a debate urgent.

I call also for a debate on the need to ensure there is a stronger ethical code and regulation in banking, something Deputy Joan Burton has called for consistently, as has Senator Alex White. It is made even more urgent by reports today that Anglo Irish Bank is proposing to make an interest-free loan to a developer and has declined to state on what security. This is now a State-owned bank. The ESRI is highly critical of the long-term impact of this type of practice. It is important that we keep some kind of scrutiny, particularly on the actions of a State-owned bank.

I ask for clarification of the date on which the Leader will ensure we have a debate on women’s participation in politics. Last night I took part in the first sitting in Trinity College of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Constitution. We had a panel discussion afterwards about Article 16 and on the way in which Deputies are elected. A major focus of the discussion was on my presentation about the need to ensure we have more women in the Dáil and Seanad. A great deal of interest in the topic was expressed by the audience and other participants. We need to have such a debate in this House.

One point raised concerned the difference having more women would make. In my view, it would make an enormous difference in the ethical codes in the governance of our banking and financial services systems. It has been said in this House, including by me, that a machismo led to this sort of profit-at-all-costs culture within banking that caused the economic collapse we see today. It has often been said that if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters the international financial crisis would not have been nearly as bad. It is no coincidence — …that the Icelandic people moved from a male-dominated Government to a female-dominated one in order to get themselves out of the financial mess. Perhaps we should follow their lead.

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I join others in welcoming Senator Mooney to the House. I have not had the pleasure of working with him previously, given that I am a relatively new Senator, but I look forward to doing so in the future.

I ask the Leader for a debate on overseas aid. It is a topic that is uppermost in many of our minds as we see the horrific effects of the dreadful earthquake in Haiti. It certainly put our problems with water shortages, the big snow and the freeze, etc. into perspective for all of us in the past week. I congratulate the Government on sending aid so promptly to Haiti. However, it shows the need for us to ensure we maintain our levels of overseas aid spending which I was distressed to see cut in the budget. A debate on this would be appropriate at this time.

I also want to raise a different issue for debate with the Leader, that is, the effect of the public sector pay cut on a particular group of individuals, namely, research contract staff in universities and third level institutions. This was raised with me by the Trinity Research Staff Association, but clearly it has implications across third level institutions. It seems that these contract staff, many of whom are paid by the private sector by trusts and research funds and who have no security of employment because they are only on contract, will be made subject to the public sector pay cut as if they were civil servants or tenured public servants. If we cannot have a debate, I wish to table a matter on the Adjournment. I will have support from my colleagues among the university Senators. It is an issue we need to look at.

I support the call made by Senators Fitzgerald, Alex White and O’Toole for a debate on the banking inquiry. Listening to an interview with the Minister, Deputy Gormley, it really seems as if the Green Party and Fianna Fáil are speaking about two different inquiries to be conducted in parallel, one in private and one in public, one with a short timeframe and one which could go on until after the next election. In terms of the timeframe and the way the inquiry is to be conducted, it seems that the Green Party and Fianna Fáil are speaking in two different voices.

…We need to know the exact nature of the inquiry [the banking inquiry]. When the Minister, Deputy Gormley, states he is satisfied with the shape of it, all we can conclude is that this inquiry is likely to be pear-shaped because it does not seem it is being put together with any sort of coherence. It reminds me of a quote in the US used famously in the 1960s — the rich get richer and the poor get prison. In the US they have reformed their criminal justice structures on white collar crime to ensure people are made accountable where the banking system collapsed and inquiries were conducted in a timely fashion. We have much to learn from that. Unfortunately, in Ireland, it seems the rich still get richer and the poor still get prison.