Students facing jobless summer

Students facing jobless summer

Michael Duffy

STUDENTS from around the county face the bleak prospects of not being able to secure summer employment due to the ‘widespread exploitation of non-national workers in our economy’, according to Castlebar town councillor Michael Kilcoyne.
Cllr Kilcoyne made his prediction while addressing SIPTU in his capacity as sectoral organiser at the union’s annual general meeting last week, claiming that he had seen examples of people being paid €3 or €4 an hour and working 70 or 80 hours a week to earn €250.
“I saw it last year and I believe it will be even worse this summer. Sons and daughters of members of the union are not able to get summer jobs because non-nationals are being forced to take up employment in these jobs, some of them below the National Minimum Wage. The Government have done nothing to reverse this alarming trend, in fact, they made the situation for students even worse by abolishing the Summer Students’ Scheme which gave students an opportunity to earn a few euro before going back to college,” said Cllr Kilcoyne.