Invest more in IT and a little less in the banks

AT a faculty meeting in Dublin City University recently, Prof Mike Scott said his school of computing could have placed three times as many IT graduates as were available in hi-tech jobs in Ireland. Yet our dole queues are still growing.

To try to understand this dichotomy, I visited the local dole office and found that, while hundreds waited in the rain, there was no information available on any courses. From the experience of the ‘Tramlines’ computer courses in Ballymun, Dublin, in the 1990s, which resulted in several previously jobless working in IT, it is clear many of the hundreds having to sign on each month — as well as our economy and society — could benefit greatly from a proactive approach by FÁS and the local partnerships to the provision of relevant training to the growing army of unemployed. But our local employment schemes are being cut to shreds.

For IT training to work properly, we need to ensure the unemployed keep benefits while on courses and to divert a tiny fraction of the billions to bail out the banks into good training. Unlike the total waste that is the Anglo bailout, this investment would quickly return good jobs, taxes paid and unemployment benefits saved.