Fiona Gribben | Staff Writer
Local Election candidate Declan McCool has slammed the government’s attitude to young people in the wake of the recent Budget decision to cut dole payments for young people aged 22-24, as well as subsequent remarks made by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore.
During a public meeting in Swords on November 5th, United Left’s candidate in next year’s local election described Gilmore’s comments about “young people sitting in front of a flat screen” as “highly inappropriate and deeply insulting.”
“The place for any young person is not permanently in front of a flatscreen TV. It is in education and training.”
The Labour leader had insisted the reason for reducing the dole for young people was to encourage them to take up education and training for jobs rather than relying on benefits for prolonged periods of time.
“The place for any young person is not permanently in front of a flatscreen TV. It is in education and training,” McCool said.
Gilmore made the misjudged remarks in response to opposition criticism of Labour TD for Dublin South West Eamonn Maloney, who said in The Irish Independent that parents in his constituency did not want their children at home watching a flat-screen television seven days a week.
Reacting to the comments, McCool, a recent DCU graduate, said: “Young people have been specifically targeted in the budget and are being scapegoated with the Labour Party using language reminiscent of the British Tory Party’s ‘get on your bike’ posturing while at the same time they pay lip service to job creation and have presided over a mass exodus of young people who, far from being lazy have in fact travelled across the world in search of work.”
“[Labour] have presided over a mass exodus of young people who, far from being lazy have in fact travelled across the world in search of work.”
Fellow Local Election Candidate for the United Left, Ken Doyle, also spoke at the public meeting, describing the Tánaiste’s comments as a “clumsy attempt” to “paint a picture of lazy youth so that he could justify his support for welfare cuts.”
