EXISTING STATE training structures suit training providers rather than those being trained, Prof Philip O’Connell of the ESRI told a conference on economic policy formulation in Croke Park yesterday.
He went on to say that there was a tendency under the current system to “shoehorn” the jobless into inappropriate training programmes.
The ESRI academic said his research showed that the most effective type of assistance to the unemployed was short-term help in job searches. Most other types of training currently made available by the State have little or no impact on boosting employment prospects.
Citing figures published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Prof O’Connell said that of the €1.2 billion spent on labour market activation measures last year more than €700 million goes on ineffective programmes, such as the Community Employment Scheme.
Dr Aedin Doris of NUI Maynooth noted that recessions caused by financial crises tend to affect employment negatively for a decade. She said that the unemployment rate, which currently stands at just under 15 per cent and is among the highest in Europe, was likely to understate the under-utilisation of available labour.
She estimated that 24 per cent of the workforce was either working fewer hours than desired or formally unemployed.
Dr Doris said that vacancies per 100 jobs in the economy stood at 0.7. The average in the euro zone was 1.6. The only countries in Europe with a lower vacancy rate were Latvia and Portugal.
The conference was organised by UCD’s Geary Institute, the economics department of the University of Limerick and the Dublin Economics Workshop.
Speaking at the event, Dr John Fingleton, head of the British Office of Fair Trading and former chief executive of the Irish Competition Authority, told delegates that removing government-created obstacles to competition yielded far greater economic gains than preventing/penalising private anti-competitive practices.
He also said that privatisation itself “does not drive economic growth”, and that many people behind the sell-off of state assets in the UK now accepted that efficiency gains only took place after markets were liberalised.
Dr Fingleton was highly critical of successive governments’ lack of emphasis on boosting competition, and made a series of suggestions. He advocated introducing fines for breach of non-criminal competition law, as is the norm in peer countries, and urged that the Constitution be amended to ensure this can happen.
A recent Government decision not to introduce civil fines was partly based on concerns that they may be unconstitutional. He said when the Constitution prevents the enforcement of the law “it makes the Constitution look silly”.
Dr Fingelton was strongly critical of proposed minimum prices for alcohol. Such price floors would merely make additional profits for retailers. If public policy aims to reduce alcohol consumption, the best way to achieve this was by higher taxation.
On transparency and effectiveness of the public sector, Frances Ruane, head of the ESRI, said that too often information has been withheld using “commercial sensitivity” as an excuse when there was no such basis.
She also pointed to “historic” weaknesses in planning and governance, and described exercises to assess the effectiveness and value for money of Government programmes as existing to “validate rather than evaluate”.
