Council’s Gateways plan ‘slave labour’

A major row broke out after a member of Cork County Council accused his own authority of complying with a Fine Gael project which he labelled as being akin “to slave labour”.

Cllr Kevin O’Keeffe (FF) was reacting to news that as part of the so-called Gateways project, the Department of Social Protection is to force 110 people on the live register to work for 22 weeks with the council or have their benefits reduced.

He claimed the only extra money these people would get for working 17.5 hours a week with the council was €20 for travel expenses.

“At the end of the day all this is doing is just reducing the live register for spin purposes. It’s slave labour. It’s being brought in by a right-wing government,” Cllr O’Keeffe said.

His comments drew fury from the Fine Gael benches with calls for him to retract his statement, which he refused to do.

“As far as I’m concerned this is an effort to allow people to come into the workforce. I see nothing wrong with it, it’s a worthwhile scheme,” Fine Gael leader on the council Cllr Kevin Murphy said.

His party colleague Cllr Tom Sheahan, said he found it “extraordinary” that anybody would object to the scheme.

Cllr Tim Lombard (FG) said he was “shocked” by the Fianna Fáil man’s statement. “The Government is now creating 3,000 jobs a month. Three years ago when Fianna Fáil were in government you were losing 7,000 a month,” he shouted at Cllr O’Keeffe.

Cllr Alan Coleman (FF) said he was disappointed to read about the Gateways project in the Irish Examiner as councillors hadn’t been informed of it.

Cllr Ronan Sheehan (Lab) said he was concerned that people were being picked at random from the live register. “That’s a flaw,” he said. “People should have been able to apply for these positions. If somebody doesn’t want a job they will go to an interview and make up excuses why they can’t do it.”

Acting county manager Declan Daly said the council wouldn’t be taking on 150 people as previously reported, but 110.

“This is a nationwide scheme with involves local authorities and the Department of Social Protection. There is no question of displacing any council staff because of this. Less than half of them will be used for roads [maintenance],” Mr Daly said.

He said some of the new workers would be used by the council in helping to refurbish Fort Camden, which the local authority wants to turn into a major tourist attraction.

Mr Daly told Cllr Frank O’Flynn (FF) the council couldn’t take back temporary staff who were let go because of a recruitment embargo. He said the Gateways scheme would allow the council to carry out a number of jobs it couldn’t do in recent years due a decrease in its workforce.