Job Creation
The Workers’ Party believes that the creation of sustainable, well paid jobs, across the entire economy and across all regions is one of the key tasks of government and is a necessary prerequisite to building a decent society.
Over the past eight years in excess of 250,000 people, mostly young people, have been forced into emigration because of the lack of employment in this country.
Many of the jobs that have been created over the past few years have been part-time, temporary, poorly paid, casualised and offering no long-term job security. The growth in casualisation, bogus self-employment and precarious work impinges most severely on women, on young workers, and on migrant workers.
The move towards a services rather than a manufacturing economy, along with an over dependence on construction, foreign multinationals, and the banking sector are amongst the serious weaknesses of the economy at the present time.
The state must rebuild an industrial base, must use our own natural resources to create sustainable jobs and high value exports, greatly strengthen our tax system which has turned the country into a tax haven for the international banking and corporate sector, introduce strong regulatory controls on the banking sector and especially on the IFSC, diminish our dependence on carbon-based fuels and create a secure energy supply.
The Workers’ Party is committed to:
- Making our publicly-owned enterprises and semi-state commercial companies take a lead role in creating jobs
- Total opposition to the sell-off of any further sections of our commercial state or semi-state enterprises.
- The expansion of our state companies as a means to fulfil our jobs policy
- The nationalisation of our oil and gas resources and the creation of a State Energy Company. This is a vital national prerequisite as a major step to energy security and long term employment in the primary and downstream industries.
- Recognising the importance of the combined agri-food sector to the Irish economy, and specifically to the rural economy. We propose the strengthening of Coillte and Bord na Mona as potential key anchors and drivers in this sector.
- Ensuring that industrial development and job creation is compatible with long-term environmental sustainability and with the achievement of our climate change targets.
