TD: ‘Allow jobless to volunteer in Third World’
The veteran Fine Gael politician’s suggestion received widespread support from the gathering, as did his proposal that national parliaments discuss EU matters on one day each month and cooperate more closely.
“NGOs talk about the money we give the Third World in aid, but if you do not have money you have people. If some of the unemployed architects, engineers and tradespeople were willing to volunteer to work for a time using their skills and talents to help people in these countries, they could do so much, and the State would continue to pay them their benefits,” he said.
He told the gathering that you cannot expect so many young people to do nothing after years of education and training. “We need to look again at the way we use EU funds to deal with the issue and this should be done by both national parliaments and the European Parliament,” he said.
Several of the 103 deputies from other member states attending the three-day conference supported the idea, citing unemployment in several countries and especially rates of around 50% among young people in Greece and Spain.
Mr Barrett, who was co-chairing the final day of the meeting, said he would propose setting aside a Friday for the Dáil to sit to discuss EU issues.
“Unless you are a member of the EU committee you don’t really know what is going on here,” he said, adding: “All politics are local — we should try to ensure European issues become local too.”
He suggested that the European Commission should keep track of suggestions made by the annual meeting of European and the national parliaments and follow them up.
European Commissioner in charge of relations with parliaments, Maros Sefcovic, agreed it would be a good idea for national parliaments to discuss EU issues, perhaps on the same day each month in every member state.
“Especially now that we are sharing more sovereignty, it will be more important for parliaments to be part of these discussions.”
The main topic of the conference was the European Semester, the national budget cycle that involves the EU at every stage of the process from this year.
When you're unemployed, you have to volunteer your time in the mean time..I know the 'economy' other people live in but it's not all about $
— LenishaNicole (@TheeVirtuous1) January 26, 2013
