The first day I went to school I played Mala and crayons and learned to talk Irish” Na be Ag Caint” the teacher said .So we crossed our arms and put a finger up to our lips just in case a word might get out. Weeks later when we knew our colours and were able to ask to go to the toilet in Irish .The teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up .
I wanted to be a firemagade and the boy beside me wanted to be one too .Some boys wanted to be army men and others wanted to be like their Daddy. We were only four and a half and already we were being assigned our destiny.
Sixth class and we could read and write and think a little for ourselves, Now with the aid of our parents and the teachers we would decide would we go to Tech or Secondary school. If you wanted to work with your hands and take a trade you went to Tech .If the teachers thought you might be smart you went to secondary .When you got your Group cert you would leave school age 15 and try to get a job or stay on to do your leaving .If you got a good leaving cert you would do the entrance exam for the civil service or the bank.
Very few of the people I knew went on to university .It was the late seventies and the country was in recession there were very few jobs so emigrating
was also an option head off to England or America if you could afford it just like some of our parents in the fifties
2010 school leavers are once again faced with the dilemma what to do now that they have completed their education .There are no jobs to go to .There are great further education opportunities but what is the use of being prepared for a job that does not exist ?
Debs balls will follow the end of your schooling. Digital cameras will flash and capture the moment ,the posh frock , the dickiebowed boys all smiling away enjoying the occasion .The photographs of the great occasion will be printed off and placed into the family album. Boyfriends and girlfriends will be invited to look through the album to your great embarrassment .Your first haircut, your first tooth, the photo of you in the bath, your first day at school when they started to prepare you for your future .Work hard,pay attention, you will do well .You worked hard you paid attention .You left school with the intention of going to work .Working hard doing well only to find that while you kept you side of the bargain others did not. There is no work and not for the first time, your fathers and your fathers fathers all experienced something similar but nobody seems to have learned any lesson from the past. How much of this situation is of our own making? Just look around your living room – is there anything in the room made in Ireland? The answer is probably nothing .Now repeat the process for every room in the house the answer is most likely the same. Some of 
the best furniture in the world is made in Navan but we insist in going to IKEA or Argos. We never ask where was that made. The Irish-made produce may be a little more expensive but its cheaper in the long run .As long as we keep people in work we create wealth that filters through the economy and creates more jobs . At the moment the only Irish made product we seem to want to purchase is sandwiches.
The school photo of you sitting at your desk, arms crossed smiling through a toothless grin, school book opened thinking to yourself when I grow up I want to be a photograph man or a teacher cos I love Miss .The school book has now been replaced by a news paper looking through situations vacant or an application for a visa or unemployment benefit. They say as we get older we get more like our parents.
Jaysus you’re right-moved into my new appartment about 2 years ago absolutely nothing in any of the rooms is irish made except for 1 cd by the High kings of ireland, unless of course Andrex toilet rolls are made here.Just made a sandwich bought all the stuff in lidl-the bread is the only thing made in ireland
By: emma on April 27, 2010
at 5:02 pm
US MULTINATIONALS are currently trying to recruit more than 2,000 people in Ireland but are struggling to fill vacancies because of a skills shortage in science and technology.
Some 30 per cent of the vacancies at US companies surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce are taking more than three months to fill because of the difficulty in finding people in Ireland with the requisite skills and experience.
The chamber’s president, Gerard Kilcommins, yesterday highlighted the importance of addressing the skills gap emerging in areas such as science and technology, in order to protect inward investment.
“The rewards for investing in skills and education are great and the penalties for failure are severe,” he said, speaking at the chamber’s US independence day lunch.
Many of the 2,000 vacancies currently available at US companies are open to new graduates. The chamber’s annual survey found that member firms intend to increase their Irish graduate intake by 21 per cent in 2011 to almost 1,000 recruits.
Commenting on the skills shortage identified by the survey, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said the Government “recognised” the difficulties.
Speaking in Galway, where he was announcing 100 new jobs by US healthcare company Alere, he said: “We recognise that and I already had a meeting with the Minister for Education [Ruairí Quinn] last week, along with the information and communications technology (ICT) representative groups and the education interests,” he said.
Referring to the Springboard initiative announced in May by Mr Quinn, Mr Bruton said that 2,000 places were being offered in ICT programmes to fill this gap.
Mr Kilcommins warned that any move in Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate, even by a quarter or half-percentage point, would generate uncertainty, which would not be good. “If Ireland loses, Europe loses,” he said.
However, he said chamber members had been “comforted” by the clear, consistent message from the Government about maintaining the current corporation tax rate.
By: martin on July 3, 2011
at 6:09 pm