Unemployment rate - Redeploy surplus civil servants

The unemployment rate has risen to a 13-year high of over 12% and, despite some more promising figures released yesterday, economists predict unemployment will exceed 13% next year. In the past year the numbers have soared by 78%, to over 440,000.

In August the average processing time for those applying for the jobseekers’ allowance based on PRSI contributions was four weeks, and seven weeks for those applying for the means-tested allowance. But the waiting times fluctuate greatly across the country.

In four different counties people applying for welfare will have to wait until after Christmas to have their applications processed. In one area — Edenderry, Co Offaly — they will have to wait until next February, as the waiting time there is 22 weeks.

Younger people who have never experienced unemployment are suddenly faced with the dispiriting wait to be assessed. They find themselves out of work through no fault of their own, while the Government seems preoccupied with rescuing the greedy speculators and irresponsible bankers who got the country into this mess. Some of those who have recently lost their jobs have even had to turn for help to the Society of St Vincent de Paul, looking for food vouchers while they wait to be processed for unemployment benefits. This is totally unacceptable.

With the longest wait of all in the Taoiseach’s constituency, people should ask what kind of priority the public service is likely to devote to this issue in other areas? For years when there was essentially full employment, the demands on civil servants dealing with unemployment would have been minimal, but now they are snowed under with work. It is understandable that they might be briefly understaffed, but it should be possible to alleviate this with a bit of vision and some flexibility.

The demands on the existing staff have never been greater. The question could be asked how many people have been brought in on a temporary basis to replace those on maternity leave or sick leave? They could be replaced with full-time employees transferred from other departments, where they have essentially no work.

Many in departments that were very busy during the boom times, for instance, have comparatively little work to do in the midst of the economic downturn. The construction and tourist industries have been laying off great numbers of people, so the demands on the civil servants who were dealing with those areas are probably minimal at present.

One remedy to that overstaffing problem might be to lay off those civil servants, but it would be much more practical to redeploy them to areas like Social Welfare where there is a crying need for extra staff.

Redeploying surplus staff to areas where they are most needed within the public service would present a real opportunity for the civil service to provide leadership by demonstrating the vision and flexibility to deal with the problem.