Unemployed people feel greater isolation than they did when the level of joblessness in the State was higher, the Colmcille Winter School in Co Donegal will be told tomorrow.
Mr Mike Allen, of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, will argue that the unemployed are experiencing "a sense of impatience" within the community. "As a country we have a lot of thinking through to do. We were used to mass unemployment when anybody could be unemployed because the jobs weren't there," he says. "But now it is more complicated to explain. We have to recognise that people have legitimate problems that need to be addressed."
Mr Allen, who will shortly take up the position of general secretary of the Labour Party, also says that in many rural areas the number of jobs available has not increased greatly, forcing people to leave home in search of work. This is the 11th year of the Colmcille Winter School, which is held in the heritage centre at Gartan in Churchill. The theme will be "Systematic Inequality in Irish Democracy". More than 300 people will attend. Speakers include Minister of State for the Gaeltacht Mr Eamon O Cuiv, who will speak in Irish on the Language Bill; Mr Inez McCormack, ICTU president; Ms Joan Harbison, chief commissioner of the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland; Prof John FitzGerald of the ESRI; and Donegal county manager Mr Michael McLoone.
The Winter School begins tonight and will run until Sunday. Information available from: 073-37044.
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