Pre-crisis jobs levels 'now impossible'

IT IS not possible to get back to the very low unemployment levels in place before the financial crisis, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has told the Dáil.

Rejecting Labour Party claims that the Government had turned its back on the unemployed, Mr Cowen said they had significantly increased the numbers of training places. He added that the Government was supporting those in vulnerable jobs and said that jobs were not created in a “vacuum”.

Mr Cowen said there was “an idea” that it was possible to “return to the very low unemployment we saw before this crisis began, but it’s not possible” and he claimed that if Labour Party proposals were adopted “we would be in a far worse situation”.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore had accused the Government of making unemployment a low priority and said the outlook was “hopelessly depressing for people out of work”.

The latest live register figures showed unemployment at 438,000 and he said “41 per cent of those out of work were now long-term unemployed” or more than 12 months out of work. Mr Gilmore said that one in three of those between 20 and 24 was out of work and warned it was “not socially sustainable to have that many young men on the dole”.

Mr Gilmore said the Government “keeps telling us that we have turned the corner” but it seemed that as far as those who lost their jobs were concerned “the only turning the Government has done is turning your back on people who are out of work”. He said “effectively what the Taoiseach stated is that when everything else is fixed, people might get back to work”.

Rejecting Mr Gilmore’s comments, the Taoiseach insisted there was no laissez faire approach to unemployment, and added there was a focus on providing training places and assisting those in vulnerable employment. These places were created “on the basis of making our economy more competitive and being able to sell more goods and services in what has been a depressed marketplace”. There were many “activation” programmes including €40 million for jobs in rural communities and significant Fás training funding.