Why Are We Discriminating Against The Young?

Let’s assume for a minute that we agree that the Government had no real option in relation to the scale of the correction in the public finances required over the next 12 months here in Ireland. In that scenario, the challenge facing them can be summarised as follows: how to close the gap between expenditure and revenue by €2.5 billion.

Crudely speaking there are two ways of going about this: (a) raise taxes to increase the flow of revenue into the exchequer; or (b), cut expenditure to reduce the amount of money required to keep the engine turning over. Faced with a situation like this, typically, a Government will do a bit of both.
Within each of these potential strategies, of course, there are hundreds of possible scenarios. The type of society you want is defined by the choices you make in a moment like this.
To take the most glaringly obvious examples: to raise more tax, your can stick extra duty on drink and cigarettes (they did); or you can raise income tax (they didn’t). Or you can target any number of variations on either approach, always with an awareness that there is a point at which a measure has the potential to become counter-productive by, for example, stifling growth or demand (or encouraging smuggling) to the extent that increases in tax or duty deliver less revenue than before.
In terms of cuts in Government expenditure, you can hack away at current spending (to take the most obvious example, public servants’ wages) or capital spending (building new roads). Again, when you look across the various departments and what they spend, there are countless variations on either theme. Is building a new Children’s Hospital absolutely essential? On the other hand, what would you really save by delaying a project of that kind when a significant amount of the expenditure will come back to the State in the form of income tax and VAT? And bear in mind also that the inefficiencies in the treatment of children within the health system at the moment in themselves cost money.
No one should try to suggest that getting the balance between the conflicting demands and methodologies right is a cinch. In the context of having to make a range of unpleasant decisions, there is not much that can be described as an easy call – apart, that is, from volunteering a cut in politicians’ wages (they didn’t). And it is also true that they got a lot right on this occasion, in terms of trying to encourage job creation and growth.
That said, however, it is certainly possible to make bad decisions – bad, in particular, in the sense that they fly in the face of natural justice. And this is precisely what the Government have done, with the decision to cut the jobseekers’ allowance for ‘youth’...
There was a time when young people were treated as citizens, on an equal footing with everyone else. At the age of 18, if you weren’t going to college or participating in full time education, you became eligible for social welfare payments at the basic adult rate. You could work, you could vote, you could get married, you could have a drink. You were a fully fledged citizen.
Well, not any more, buddy. The erosion of the status of young people began a few years ago, with the reduction in the amount of social welfare being paid, on the basis of age. And what happened? They got away with it.
By way of contrast, in 2008, proposals to withdraw the universal medical card were greeted with outrage and protests. From the point of view of equality, this was potentially a positive step, in that it is doubtful that people in the top 10% on the rich list need the medical card. But the Fianna Fáil/Green government was forced to back down, when 15,000 old age pensioners turned up screaming outside the Dáil. Politicians quailed. Why? Because these people voted. They could kill you off quickly. Which is what, in due course, they did to a lot of Fianna Fáil TDs, in the last general election.
By comparison, people under the age of 25 are an easy target. A far smaller percentage of them vote for a start. Plus, they have a lot of other shit to do, so they are less likely to mount a protest of sufficient heft to really embarrass the government. And so they have become convenient whipping boys and girls, treated as second and third class citizens – if indeed we can say that they are treated properly like citizens at all.
Youth unemployment is currently at a record high, with 30% out of work. Is there even the remotest sense in which we could say that this is the fault of young people themselves? No. They had neither hand, act nor part in plunging the economy, and the country, into the mire. And suggestions that they have a bad attitude or don’t want to work are nothing less than defamatory: in Hot Press we are constantly struck by the commitment and enthusiasm showed by thousands of people coming out of school or college who clearly want desperately to work, who are seeking work experience and who would be happy to undertake apprenticeships or internships if we could provide them.
Rather, they are the ultimate victims of the ineptitude and miscalculations of our ruling classes, their potential stolen from them by the stupidity and greed of others. But that, it seems, is not punishment enough for a crime they had no part in committing.
So let us be clear about it. The further cuts announced in the 2013 budget are an attack on youth. They are the latest in a long line of policies which impoverish the young, in order to protect the wealth of the old and the established. And the effect is to create a deeper inter-generational divide than has existed here since the 1950s.
That divide is less evident than it might be because of the ‘safety valve’ of emigration. I wouldn’t deny for a minute that emigration can sometimes be a good thing: if Irish people spend time working abroad, it opens the country up to other cultures, connections and experiences. But it is a different matter entirely, conspiring to force young people to emigrate. The truth is that some cynical mandarin has probably thought of it in precisely those terms: if we can get them to go now, then they’ll cost us nothing.
To underline the extent to which this is now official thinking, during the Dáil debate on the budget, the Fianna Fáil finance spokesperson, Michael McGrath, cited a letter sent to a constituent by the Department of Social Protection, setting out job opportunities – in Canada.
The best way to get young men and women to bugger off, of course, is to cut the dole to a derisory amount. Which is what they’ve done. People between the ages of 22 and 24 will now get the same pitiful Jobseekers Allowance, as those between 18 and 21, of just €100. It is a gross insult. At 25 the amount goes up to €144 and at 26 it increases again to €188. The estimated savings effected by the introduction of these new measures is €35 million.
The Government has promised to put €14m into the so called Youth Guarantee, which promises that anyone on the dole will get an offer of a job, work experience, an apprenticeship or training within four months. But, of course, this will only happen for some, because the money provided is a mere fraction of what it would take to fulfil that promise across the board.
Either way, what we are seeing is a form of rank discrimination against young people.
Where is the solidarity? There is none. Young people are being screwed. It is deeply wrong. But, as the independent TD Stephen Donnelly pointed out, there is a very serious question also as to whether it is unconstitutional.
It may be, as has happened so often in the past, that we have to turn to the courts to prevent what amounts to a form of institutional abuse. The only question is: who has the time and the money to take a case?