Youth in protest at dole pay cuts

They are the generation which feels the door to a better future has been slammed in their face by the Government.

Protesters representing the young unemployed and students gathered outside the Dáil to express outrage at the budget move to slash dole payments for the under-25s to €100 a week.

To highlight their plight, demonstrators held suitcases and queued at a door marked “Emigration”, while one marked “€100 a week” was ignored, as they claim that with the lack of appropriate training schemes and job opportunities, the only option left open to them is to flee the country.

Many expressed particular contempt at Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore’s claim that young people needed to be lured away from “flatscreen TVs” and forced onto training schemes.

Unemployed graduate Moira Murphy, 24, of the We’re Not Leaving campaign said: “It is not a choice between flatscreen TVs and a job. What the Government has done by cutting benefits in this budget is to make it a choice between poverty and emigration.”

Ms Murphy said that to live on €100 per week, young people would have to live with their parents and for many that was just not an option. “It is just a fantasy about sitting in front of flatscreen TVs and the fact Mr Gilmore can say that shows that he just sees young people as a soft target and they are using any opportunity they can to cut essential benefits.

“Emigration will only escalate if these cuts come in. Many people cannot return home to their parents, others have parents who cannot just support them. Rent allowance is really hard to get as well, despite what Michael Noonan seems to believe. Emigration is just one of the strands that we are trying to highlight, other issues like housing and mental health are also linked.”

Trinity College Dublin students’ union president Tom Lenihan, son of the late Brian Lenihan, said the demonstration was the beginning of a wider campaign as he accused Mr Gilmore of “living in a bubble” when it came to the reality of being young and unemployed.

Joe O’Connor, president of the Union of Students in Ireland said: “A segment of society is being targeted on grounds of age in a completely unfair way. If the work, the education, and the training was out there, our young people would take it up. There was never an issue in the past with young people refusing to take up work when it was available.”