No hope for a State lift for our unemployed youth

HALF the Cabinet being stuck in a lift on budget day was a fitting metaphor for a Government going nowhere.

The buzz word for the mean spirited cut to unemployment benefit for people under 25 was “activisation” as this casual piece of cruelty was sold by Labour leader Eamon Gilmore as forcing the idle, feckless young to drag themselves away from lounging around in front of their “flat screen TVs” and get a job.

And that would be just great if there was actually work for them to do, but with one vacancy for every 32 unemployed people this August, the only thing the young unemployed are going to be “activated” into doing is emigrating — or being forced onto the streets through homelessness.