Madam, - The most surprising aspect of last Saturday's riot was that those in charge of public policy should be surprised at what happened. Over the past year we have had a plethora of reports, from bodies as authoritative and varied as the OECD, the Competitiveness Council, the ESRI, Fás and the Department of Education, pointing out that large numbers of young and not so young people are being consigned to long-term unemployment and alienation because we are failing to educate and train them.
While the latest report from the Higher Education Authority, highlighted in Wednesday's The Irish Times, points out that third-level participation rates by children from higher professional groups are reaching "saturation point", only 20 per cent of children from poorer areas go to college. And while overall education standards are rising, only 67 per cent of Irish schoolchildren complete second level, compared with an OECD average of 72 per cent.
The Fás labour market survey last year predicted that 70 per cent of future employment growth in this country would require people with third-level qualifications. The same agency's training strategy pointed out, almost simultaneously, that 70 per cent of our existing workforce lack third-level education and 30 per cent never completed second level.
One does not have to be a soothsayer, or social scientist, to see the outcome of all this. The latest school-leavers' survey (for 2004) shows that unqualified students are five times more likely to be unemployed after 12 months than their peers. A decade ago an unqualified student was four times more likely to be unemployed.
Add to this the thousands of low-skilled workers, many of them middle-aged to elderly, who have lost their jobs in recent years and one gets some idea of the size of the problem we are facing. The only new initiative from the Government this year has been to provide funding worth somewhere between €13 million and €48 million, depending on which press release you believe, for pilot schemes to retrain workers in vulnerable industries.
In 2004 alone the State spent €140 million on rebates to employers making workers redundant and had to pay another €38.6 million to workers because employers had shirked their statutory responsibilities.
For some years Siptu has been calling urgently for universal paid study leave for all workers and systematic upskilling. Surely this should be the priority for Fás, the state training agency, rather than pursuing the distraction of relocating its head office to Birr in time for the next general election.
All of this is not meant to condone the appalling behaviour of the rioters, simply to point out that if we do not address the educational and training deficits in our society with some urgency we are facing more of the same in the not too distant future. - Yours, etc,
JACK O'CONNOR, General President, Siptu, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1.
Madam, - As an 18-year-old in 1973, in my second week working for CIÉ, I witnessed a bomb explosion in Sackville Place which took the life of my colleague Thomas Douglas.
As I have very strong feelings about that event, I also have very mixed feelings about the Protestant march in Dublin last Saturday.
If the march was an act of remembrance for all those killed indiscriminately by violence, then I would support it. If, however, this march was solely to remember the victims of the Provisional IRA, I would not. The whole of the intended route of the march is full of the ghosts of ordinary working people who lost their lives to the violent actions of Protestant paramilitaries.
Please don't add insult to injury. March for all victims, don't discriminate. Please note: I don't consider myself to be anti-Protestant or anti-loyalist. I had a drink, in the Taoiseach's favourite public house, with Glentoran fans last week, when they visited Tolka Park to play Shelbourne in the Setanta Cup. - Yours, etc,
JOE FINNERTY, Swords, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Many people have asked what would happen if a republican march tried to go down the Shankill Road in Belfast. Surely this is a spurious analogy. The Shankill Road is tribal territory. O'Connell Street is the main thoroughfare of a capital city.
Is it being contended that it too is exclusive tribal territory? - Yours, etc,
PASCHAL HOULIHAN, Dooradoyle, Limerick.