By Brendan Dempsey, Cork Regional President
It is horrifying to be told that the real unemployment figure in Ireland may be 18 per cent. The Congress of Trade Unions this week highlighted the social damage this is doing.
I can add that the level of stress which Society of St.Vincent de Paul volunteers are seeing in families and individuals with whom they deal throughout Cork City and County is also a source of immense personal damage.
But I cannot see that people matter a great deal to our Government.
The message has to be put bluntly by those of us in the voluntary sector who are now carrying the burden of providing the welfare supports from which the Government is withdrawing that people are important.
I do not hear enough from Government Ministers about people, about families in trouble. It is as if people don’t count for them.
The only references to people are made in an off-hand way and usually at a time when the Government is jumping around to help the banks and the speculators and developers who have caused all the problems from which ordinary people and their families are suffering.
When the banks sneeze, the Government jumps and puts billions into their vaults. It seems they just can’t give them enough.
Yet for families and individuals, there is no such support.
There is no NAMA for those who face the loss of their homes or their businesses because of what the banks and the speculators have done to them.
Individuals, families are being left on their own, told to fend for themselves by the Government which has imposed wage and welfare cuts and higher taxes, as well as intending to introduce more of the same impositions in next December’s Budget.