THE NUMBER of schools being built should be trebled and €300 million should be put aside by the Government to help companies keep workers employed, Sinn Féin has proposed.
The ideas are included in a party policy document published yesterday, the first of three economic papers to be unveiled by Sinn Féin in coming days.
The jobs package would cost €2.26 billion but the party says failure to implement it would result in increased spending on social welfare.
Some 86 schools should be built this year – double the Government’s target this year – and 125 every year between 2010 and 2013. It also wants the Government to create a three-year plan to save jobs and send the newly unemployed to school, VECs, colleges and universities.
Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald said: “We need to keep the wheels of the real economy turning. The Government has had an almost casual acceptance of lengthening dole queues.”
Under the Sinn Féin plan, companies who are on the point of laying off staff could seek to have up to 20 per cent of their workers’ salaries – up to the standard industrial rate of €634 weekly – paid for by the State if they keep them in a job.
“The State’s public finances are in freefall. The financial sector is collapsing, creating a cash-flow crisis for Irish businesses.
“The haemorrhage of jobs is now hitting revenue intake, while increasing demand on social welfare and wasting the talents and ability of a whole generation,” says the Sinn Féin paper Getting Ireland Back To Work.
It says a new State bank, similar to the Industrial Credit Corporation of the 1980s, should be set up with a €100 million budget to offer credit to small businesses.
Legislation should be passed quickly to allow for commercial rents to fall, while the Government’s house-insulation programme should be doubled in size thus creating 4,000 jobs.
It also calls for efforts to be made to encourage Irish-owned firms to export goods, while Enterprise Ireland should merge services with county enterprise boards, Fás, colleges and others.
It says home-owners should be able to shift from high-interest fixed-rate mortgages without suffering penalties, while the heavily indebted should be offered “a one-off” chance to roll up credit card and other borrowings into their mortgage.
Contracts to build major infrastructural projects, such as roads, should be broken up so that smaller Irish-owned firms can compete with foreign competition.
Asked about the national day of action planned by the Ictu, Ms McDonald said workers’ protests were “inevitable where you have people at the top getting obscene levels of money”.
“Our preference is that there is a discussion between Government and the social partners. But be very clear: where people see unfairness; where they see the likes of Michael Fingleton and his ilk creaming off, workers are going to react. What else do you expect?”
Asked if she would discourage people from going on strike, she said: “No, I wouldn’t. How could you? There isn’t a worker in Ireland who wants to go on strike.”
However, the party’s finance spokesman Arthur Morgan – whose family runs a fish-processing company – denied that she was encouraging workers to strike.
“Some workers are already taking pay cuts. That is a fact of life out there at the moment.
“Do I favour it? No, I don’t. I don’t want to see that’s happening, but it is a fact of life whether I like it or not, or whether the workers like it or not.”
Asked if his family firm will be going on strike, Mr Morgan said: “I don’t know. Mary Lou is not asking anybody to go on strike. We are accepting people’s right to strike.”
SF proposals: highlights
Introduce a US-style "GI Bill" to let unemployed study for free, and keep welfare benefits
Raise school leaving age to 17
Introduce 100MB broadband in all cities by 2011
Harmonise VAT rates in Republic and North over 10 years
Give multinationals who use Irish produce tax credits
Require embassies to offer language services and other help to firms trying to sell abroad
Set up Eolas Glas Éireann to boost green energy research
