Council urged to take job creation measure

Date Published: 04-Apr-2013

BY DARA BRADLEY

Pressure is being asserted on the local authority to introduce a ‘social benefit clause’ into the city’s public procurement contracts, which would take long-term unemployed people off the city’s Dole queues.

The Galway Council of Trade Unions and, separately, Sinn Féin are campaigning to have social clauses inserted into all Galway City Council contracts.

The two organisations have argued that the provision of a social benefit clause is allowed for in European law, and it is up to each individual local authority to include a clause.

All trade unions locally backed a motion calling on Galway City Council to insert a clause similar to that in operation in Derry.

The clause in Derry for large contracts stipulated that for every one million of contract value, the winner of the tender had to employ at least one qualified, long-term unemployed person, and one apprentice.

Mark Lohan, Galway Council of Trade Unions, said it is a “lost opportunity” for local unemployed construction-related workers that the City Council doesn’t have a social clause on its books.

He said that the social clauses have to be written in a way that doesn’t discriminate, or breach competition laws, but if worded correctly will inevitably result in an increase in local unemployed people being taken on to work on public contracts.

“It can mean more paperwork for the tendering process but it is worth doing. After all, it is our money, public money,” Mr Lohan told the Galway City Tribune.

Census figures have revealed the extent of the unemployment crisis in Galway’s construction industry – official data showed that around 1,300 Galway builders and tradesmen lost their jobs in the construction sector every year for the past five years.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.