I’m in the same boat Carly…
Trying to start something myself, but I can’t get any assistance at all.
Been unemployed for 4 months , but I can’t get on to a scheme for 6/7 months. And as for the bank entertaining me with a small loan to get started!!!! (I could still hear them laughing as I walked down the road)
UK , US or OZ bound very shortly I think..

Why do you need any assistance from the government? Just sign up for the course. I’ve gone back to university to upskill and haven’t received anything from the government/state. The fee’s are good value from an international perspective and you have nearly a full year to pay them. Instead of looking for handouts and letting your self esteem decrease further go out and improve yourself and stop looking for excuse’s and state handouts.

If you’re in education, you’re not available for work and so not eligible for job seeker’s benefit, Bill. More than likely, Carly’s talking about a fas-type course if it’s specifically open to people over a year unemployed.

Let me guess Bill, you drive to “university” in a range rover that you use to tow that horse in the picture around in?
Lucky for you.

Or just pay for the course yourself!! Right??

Shame

My missus is unemployed, they wont give here any money any more as she lives with me (and I work). They still want her to go down and sign on every week even though they won’t give here any monies at all, I’m sure you can guess she doesn’t bother her hole to go down and stand in a q for hours to get nothing, There must be plenty more cases like this that are under the radar.

Just wondering if anything has been spent from the EGF fund down there and how successful was it? The one in Limerick after Dell moved overseas for more profits was a disgrace in the way it was wasted.

That is correct Denis, just a few months before the general election there was a bid to oust Kenny as leader of the Fine Gael party. We don’t know how that vote went, Before that Noonan was ousted as Fine Gael leader not fit to run the party but now he holds the most important job in the cabinet. My suggestion come next election …NOBODY SHOULD VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN… Yes we should boycott the election, that would make them take heed to the electorate…

nail on the head Chris
This was the first point on the 5 point plan and if they had of tackled it head on at the time we would have been a lot further down the road to recovery.

That’s it, now what you do is cut the sh1te out of everything, tax people into the ground and now come up with another “jobs plan” to get everyone back to work, what about the last 5 point plan that’s disappeared like this one will, its just another deflection to take your attention away from the property tax etc. there is no plan this gang of teachers have never run a business, they are just used to telling people what to do, they never listen, overpaid gobs*ites

There’s still significant numbers of people who previously worked in construction but who have not emigrated.

Sadly our previous over reliance on the construction industry means that there will never be enough jobs for those people. Retraining and redeployment to other sectors of the economy is the only way for them to get back into the workforce.

Given your tireless shilling for FG on here, David, perhaps you could ask Enda what retraining my 59 year old father can do and who, with government assistance, will hire him? He’s got countless years’ experience in first and second fix carpentry, as well as being an experienced foreman and construction project manager.

I suppose he’ll get an ECDL certificat from FAS and be off to head up one of Google’s R&D team soon, yeah?

How about the other four guys of ye same age he’s worked with, they can’t all have lovely tech jobs with twitter, can they?

But hey, at least the figures look good… not many Spanish or Italians have emigrated to Australia.

It’s window dressing. Nothing more.

Alan…. this is the elephant in the room nobodys talking about. .. all the over 40s that will not be employed due to massive age discrimination in this country. ..sure it’s great to bring along the googles..PayPal etc to Ireland …. to employ Spanish. .Germans… Italians etc… what about investing in our infrastructure and getting our legions of older workers back to work? …oh…I forgot. ..We have to send any money we have abroad to pay unsecured bond holders. ..silly me

Indeed, and that’s just it!

I have no problem with the govt encouraging companies to locate on Ireland with high-tech jobs and all. They pay well an those employees will rent/buy property, shop here, pay tax here, drink in bars here etc… All necessary for the economy to tick over . But there is a massive drain on the tax take through the various unemployment payments, medical cards etc and its not going to be solved by spending money where it’s not needed and not spending if where it actually is.

Older, but still in working age, people can’t simply do a course and redeploy themselves elsewhere. Most, of not all, have done the same job, or type of job , for the last 20-30 years.

Not addressing that and engaging in money-go-round schemes like they’ve announced today will do nothing to solve that.

Totally agree Alan. … no probs with people from anywhere paying taxes here from productive employment. … we still have large gaps in our infrastructure here that could be addressed by sensible investment which if properly managed and thought out could get some of our more experienced construction workers back working again. … the government does not seem to understand the economics of the domestic economy and continues to ignore it at our peril. … seems it’s the same old nonsense up at Leinster house with jobs for the boys being the main concern

Now David, your constant defending of the dear leader and his party is admirable but tiresome to be honest. With regard to training people do you recall anything about the EGF fund of about €54 million that was wasted by your administration which was supposed to have been specifically targeted at construction workers so that they could re-train? Any comments on that please?

@Joe Shaw – no we once again are the eejets – . this is all window dressing for IMF . they could not care less about Irish – or else they would not have driven tens of thousands of potential taxpayers out of country- which may have ” stabilised unemployment ” – but is a sign of a failed state and faioed policies of Austerity /
these ” people ” go abroad and BS – and give an impression that they are doing a fine job . the ones that have got out IMO are the lucky ones .
The politicina s need to be thrown out of office – like soon . The Liffey might be a good place to depoist them – if they survive – they are agents of the Devil and shpuld be hung – and if they drown – well they were guilty of robbing the people .
After all since we are headed back to the middle ages – surely that is fair .

Regardless of the bailouts/bondholders etc, construction rose to 25% of economic activity at its peak. There’s absolutely no way we can every achieve that level again.

The only way to provide work for ALL unemployed construction workers would be to create another construction bubble, which would provide a temporary set of jobs for people, but in the long run would be another disaster.

To anyone who has been in construction all their lives and for whom retraining isn’t an option, I honestly do not know what the solution is for them. But I think we can all agree another construction bubble is not the answer.

David, nobody has suggested or intimated that we need or ought to create another construction bubble. To suggest that they have is incredibly flippant of you.

But it is nice at least that you have, in a round about way, agreed that the current Government is doing nothing for a huge portion of the long-term unemployed which, today, they claim to be targeting.

PEOPLE higgins is a goverment stooge beaware the propaganda .

higgins Alan kennedy has wiped the floor with your dribble ,the time has come for you to go and do something else .

Good luck Julie :) I’m in the first stages if the visa process my self , fingers crossed I’ll be spending this Christmas in hot perth with my family and friends who are already there.

Good luck to you too, in sure you will get the visa fine. It pretty standard enough. Yup will be on a beach somewhere myself having a BBQ next Christmas weird thought. Your lucky most of your family out there most of mine are here so it mixed emotions of happy and sad. Looking forward to meeting my sis longest I have gone without seeing her. And we meant to believe Enda and his buddies are doing their best to create jobs their doing the total opposite and then creating stupid schemes(scams) just to make it look like the numbers have been reduced.

Well said julie…. good luck in oz. ….

Thanks Marc. hopefully it will all work out, sorry it has to work out because at the moment its my only option. would like to thank bankers politicians and media. Bankers and politicians are the ones that caused this mess, how funny it is that they are the only ones getting away scot free. You gotta love Iceland

I’d like to give you 100000000 thumbs up

No one’s happy with over 14% unemployment, but considering most other countries in Europe have seen massive increases in unemployment over the past two years, stabilising unemployment in itself in an achievement.

Yes emigration plays a significant part of the stabilisation, but even looking at the number of job losses, we’re doing much better than the rest of Europe, especially better than the other PIGS countries.

Blind subservience and ignorant drivel

Ah c’mon David. Enda promised us 100,000 jobs 2 years ago. You’d have thought that at least some of those jobs would have been here at this stage. Face facts, they’re completely out of their depth.

To be fair to Enda he did create a lot of jobs – for government special advisers!

Well paying jobs too Con.

There was a large reduction in the number of special adviors vs. the last government.

Sadly the pay cap was breached a number of time but overall their salary levels are down and there’s less of them.

“No one’s happy with over 14% unemployment, but considering most other countries in Europe have seen massive increases in unemployment over the past two years, stabilising unemployment in itself in an achievement.”

You haven’t stabilised unemployment. How dare you include those who have emigrated in great numbers in your metrics for “stabilising unemployment”. That is the main factor for the unemployment rates not sky-rocketing even further. Why doesn’t Fine Gael ever take about this? Why don’t they accept the HUGE role that people being forced to move abroad has on the unemployment figures? Emigration has tripled since the ‘good times’. That’s the reality. Stability has zero to do with this Government’s work. Zero.

Be honest for once. Just once.

Could someone in The Journal organise a charity event where we could throw rotten fruit at the serial thumbs down posters like David here, it’d be great craic for a good cause.

David- I’ve read many of your pro-government comments, often with surprise, given the way you seem intransigently wedded to towing the party line, regardless of their performance, but never has your inability, and indeed unwillingness, to see the reality of this situation been more evident. Defending FG’s failed jobs policy is bad, galling even, given its lack of substance, but trying to claim things could be worse, by deflecting to other struggling countries is pure political cowardice. Without a mass exodus of our youth, and the careful movement of people from unemployment to other welfare programmes, our figures would be much worse, as you nonchalantly brushed over. Your willingness to ignore the facts, so as to defend failed policies that are ruining the lives of the middle and working class is more of the shameful stuff we see everyday from government benches. FG, or their more polished cousin, FF, may welcome such blind commitment, but increasingly our wider society is starting to call it what it is, soulless waffle.

The people need to have money, to spend in the economy and Jobs are created! Did anyone tell them, or do they think we have money trees and printers!

yeah . erased from history , Just like F.F. were , oh hang on the sheep have just returned them .
An Ambassadores wife when she was leaving the country ( can’t remember who it was) was asked for her thoughts on Ireland and the Irish , her reply was all the usual cliches but her last remark was that she thought the Irish ” have lost their sense of outrage ” hhhhhmmmmmmm interesting and so right .
thats why we are in the c**p ,talk the talk but ……..

The government have done extremely well on jobs.
The length of dole cues are increasing.
Emigration is at 80,000 well qualified, well educated, well schooled (mainly) native Irish people per year.
Yet immigration is at 50,000 per year????
A famine or a grotesque plague could not have done better.

many jobs filled here where theres an abundance of home grown skills are even been filled by non-EUs, anywhere the job can be done cheaper. its business for their buddies in business, sure Richard Bruton said it, we need to be competitive! imo i think it should be illegal, wouldn’t happen in Canada or Australia or even Brazil where the job can be filled by home grown talent. Even with the minimum wage here, if i had a home country where that weekly wage is worth triple, i’d be sending it home too plus of course i get the huge child benefit for my kids that don’t reside here – a great incentive if you’re not from here. I know many are here with their house back home on the rent market.

bullshit

well, they could try to stabilise certain factors which continually force people to close their businesses.
rent control on shop premises comes to mind right away but i’m sure there are other economic factors in play which other people would be more qualified to mention.

what is this fairy tale that government cant create jobs? its total codswallop

They could start with the upwards rents that are killing small business’s daily. They certainly have some control over that

Meanwhile, not a single sponsored site visit carried out by the IDA in Donegal in 2012.
http://www.inishowennews.com/012IDADonegal321.htm

@Tommy, don’t you know your facts aren’t welcome here. Only crap spewed by the anti-everything brigade is tolerated ….. Especially so on a government related post.

grow up Rory
The figures speak for themselves

Yes they do, in the link tommy posted.

I’m 5’9 frank I’d love to grow up don’t tease me like that.

The headline is a bit misleading Tommy, the article also states:
While the headline figure was stronger than at any time since the crash began in 2008, the number of jobs created in 2012 fell fractionally to 12,722, according to the end-of-year results from the IDA.
This was offset by the number of job losses in the sector falling to their lowest level in a decade at 6,152, meaning the net job creation was 6,570.
About 4,000 of these were in the ICT/technology sector.
However, the figures account for jobs agreed between the companies and the IDA, and do not necessarily mean that all the positions were filled by the end of last year.

hahah very good rory

the figures can sometimes be misleading as the article states:

However, the figures account for jobs agreed between the companies and the IDA, and do not necessarily mean that all the positions were filled by the end of last year.

so how many jobs in reality???

Ah its the late Frank Cluskey again!!! As i said before.. I think it kind of disgusting to use a dead man (of some integrity) as your ‘pretend’ online name and face… I also suggest you have not recieved any permission from his family to do this..

Ah its the mad MUPPET Declan!
If you had bothered to read my reply the last time you would know im a relation,
but maybe reading is not your strong point
probably not much need for it in the gombeen parish pump area you come from MUPPET!

Don’t believe for one second you are a relation!!!! You complete spoon…. Biggest idiot on j.ie and that is saying something..

hahaha
who loves ya baby
you MUPPET!

They could do something about “upward only rent review” which was promised by FG 2 years ago.The retail sector is being decimated by this.

the best way me hole, don’t we have a large public sector here? the ONLY proven way to get out of a recession is for the government to create jobs, i don’t know what right-wing pseudo-economist you’ve been reading but whoever it is, they havn’t a clue

This will never happen a lot of TDs are landlords .

RP – our public sector is already far too bloated, please tell me without increasing this , how a government creates jobs

I refer you to the most famous case in history FDR’s ‘New Deal’ that took the USA and the World out of depression, he didnt inflate the public service but instead started many infrastructure projects, this is one example, i can offer many more, i challenge you to present one that has worked under similar practices that fg employ

Why do so many people seem to think the government creates jobs?! The government can create jobs mostly unsustainable jobs. The government is needed to foster good conditions for private business to boom.