INOU addresses Sinn Féin Oireachtas team

THE Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed today addressed the Sinn Féin Oireachtas team's think-in ahead of the Dáil's and Seanad's return next week. INOU Policy Director Bríd O'Brien heard Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh repeat the party's call for the return of the Christmas Bonus social welfare payment.

Speaking during the course of his introduction Deputy Ó Snodaigh announced that Sinn Féin will once again call for the restoration of the Christmas Bonus Social Welfare payment in its pre-budget submission which will be published in the coming months.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh said:

Sinn Féin is campaigning to provide jobs for the unemployed. In stark contrast to the Government, Sinn Féin has a job-creation strategy. In 2009, we published our three-year plan, ‘Getting Ireland Back to Work’, which sought to save the one thousand jobs per day that were being lost.

Earlier this year, together with Ógra Shinn Féin, we published ‘Solutions to Youth Unemployment’, which created over 40,000 jobs for the young unemployed along with thousands more opportunities for education and training.

And last week we published ‘Let’s Get Dublin Working’, which includes proposals to save and create almost 100,000 jobs in Dublin in 2011.

Sinn Féin is also advocating that social welfare for the unemployed be increased in the form of the return on the Christmas bonus. We have identified the necessary revenue for this and it will be detailed in our pre-Budget submission.

Sinn Féin rejects the Government’s approach to economic recovery. Rather we see increased funding for the welfare state as an integral part of our approach to economic recovery. Social welfare recipients spend their income and as such this form of public spending acts as a much needed stimulus for the real economy and involves a significant employment kick-back.