Sinn Féin unveils economic recovery plan

The Government should pay struggling employers to retain workers and stem the soaring unemployment rate, Sinn Féin claimed today.

The party proposed a €300m fund to subsidise cash-strapped small and medium businesses.

Its 10-point plan for the recession also proposes raising the school leaving age to 17 and waiving training fees for laid-off workers.

MEP Mary Lou McDonald said the state should be paying to keep people in jobs.

“It makes a lot more economic sense and social sense to support people at work rather than supporting people on the dole queues,” Ms McDonald said.

“It’s very ironic that as we speak now, the only monies that Government are actually paying out to enterprises and workers are actually redundancy payments.

“They are paying to facilitate people’s exit from the labour market. We want them to stump up cash to keep them at work.”

College fees would be axed for redundant workers or those on the dole who want to go into training, while they would also be allowed retain their social welfare benefits, under the plan.

The proposal is based on the GI bill rolled out by former US President Franklin D Roosevelt during World War II, in which unemployment relief and a college education were provided for returning veterans.

Other key elements of the plan include:

- Increase the school leaving age to 17 and introduce a scheme to get early school leavers back into education;

- Pension reform based on a universal state system, backed up by a social insurance earning-related pension;

- Speedy access to entitlements for all who lose their jobs;

- Take those on or below the minimum wage back out of the tax net;

- Get construction workers back to work by going ahead with key infrastructure projects including the building of 125 schools a year between 2010 and 2013;

- Banks compelled to allow those on high-interest fixed mortgages to move to tracker mortgages without facing penalties.

Gerry Adams, Sinn Féin president, said workers had to fight for their rights.

“This is May Day and I think part of what we’re saying is that people need to organise a fight back,” he said.

“They need to stand up for themselves and stand up for others.

“Not just to be barging and giving off about the Government ... but (get) in behind constructive proposals like the ones we are outlining.”