Government MP Dale Butler has called for the young unemployed Bermudians who sit around doing nothing all day to be forced off the wall and into training.

Mr. Butler said there was no excuse for them "chilling out" without a job when there is a such a chronic shortage of workers in Bermuda that the Island has to bring in foreigners.

He told MPs in the House of Assembly on Friday that it was time to forget the rights of the wall-sitters and to force them into either national service or compulsory job training.

"No minority has the right to chill out while the rest of us are working. They should be mandatorily taken off the wall. I don't want to hear about their rights," he told the House.

Last night, Mr. Butler told The Royal Gazette he had not raised the issue with the Progressive Labour Party, but that most Bermudians believed it was time to stop kidding ourselves" and take decisive action against the layabouts.

"Most Bermudians are concerned that we have a large number of young Bermudians who appear not to have any type of employment and just sit around morning, noon and night," he said.

"We have a genuine shortage of workers in this country, but their potential is being wasted. They have the right to be there, but my position is that if the minority threaten the lifestyle, the values and the morals of the majority, we have to take action against that minority.

"We have a shortage of skilled workers, a shortage in the hospitality industry, a shortage of policemen, and everyone is trying to recruit Bermudians, yet these folks feel they can sit around doing nothing," Mr. Butler continued. "With this skill shortage, we should consider very strongly the fact that no-one should be allowed to sit around doing nothing.

"My strong suggestion is that from time to time, one has to put their rights aside and say for the sake of the majority in this country, you have got to be employed. You can't sit on the wall all day, littering, being a nuisance to passers-by and benefiting from our society without making any meaningful contribution."

He added: "It may be time to take you off the street against your will."

It may be national service or compulsory training because by hanging around they are not being constructive to anyone. We know their parents are worried that they are not making any contribution to the household.

"When you talk to them, they all claim they are looking for work, but we've got to stop kidding ourselves and start to do something meaningful. We could start off with a programme to get ten percent of them, then 20 percent, then 80 percent because them we could say we have done something."

He also told MPs that prisons had to become self-sufficient by making work at Westgate Correctional Facility mandatory.

"They should not sit around getting three square meals a day, with dessert. I might spend a couple of months there soon, it looks like a vacation to me," he said.

"There should be no parole unless you have been in a programme. Don't just give it for good behaviour, that's expected."

In the House, Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety Minister Terry Lister also attacked the wall-sitters, saying they were dragging the country down.

He made a distinction between those hit by the post-September 11 recession and those who had never wanted to work in the first place.

"They choose to drop out and sit on the wall and we have to bring someone else in. We are doing our best. We need mums and dads, uncles and aunties to help get these people out working."