04/08/2010

USI 'Mutiny' Over Unemployment

A student representative body has held a shipboard demonstration to highlight Ireland's high levels of unemployment among graduates due to the current recession.

A spokesman for the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said: "Student leaders and students dressed up in the garb of various professions and boarded the Jeanie Johnston famine ship memorial at the IFSC in Dublin.

"We wanted to stop the forced emigration of our highly skilled graduates, representing a devastating loss to the Irish economy."

They said strategies need to be put in place if a generation of skilled Irish graduates are to be saved from emigration.

The group said the Government should be introducing measures to stymie Ireland's 'brain drain', through schemes such as job shares, where two graduates could be taken off the live register on a part time basis in order to gain experience.

USI President Gary Redmond also called on the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O'Keeffe to introduce short and long-term strategies to deal with over 68,000 unemployed graduates.

He added that 1,500 postcards would be received by the Department of Enterprise in weeks to come in the next step of the campaign.

(DW/BMcC)

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