The number of people out of work at the end of the year has risen for the first time since the current Government took office. By John McManus

The live register statement for December shows that a provisional 152,406 people were signing on the dole, compared with 141,586 in December 2000, an increase of 10,820.

The Minister for Social, Community & Family Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, said the Government was concerned about the number of people being made redundant and those without work indefinitely. Some 78 per cent of people on the live register in December were unemployed for three months or more.

"I and my colleagues in Government are determined to do what we can to ensure that these people will get back into the workforce as quickly as possible," he said.

The December figure represents the sixth successive monthly rise in the number claiming benefit. The unadjusted increase in December, of 5,285, was almost identical to the 5,300 increase in the unadjusted figure for November. However, for administrative reasons related to the euro, the December data do not reflect people signing on after December 21st.

The Labour Party said yesterday the figures showed the upward trend in unemployment, which became apparent in the October and November figures, was now confirmed as the worst in decades. Mr Pat Rabbitte, Labour spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, said the Government "has shown no capacity to respond to the haemorrhage of job losses now occurring".

Fine Gael also predicted the job situation would get worse in the coming months. "Many redundancy notices that have been issued have not yet resulted in actual job losses," said Mr Charlie Flanagan, the party spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment.

Among the job losses yet to show up in the official figures are the 2,000 people being made redundant by Aer Lingus, the first of whom left yesterday. The new year has also seen a number of other redundancy announcements, including 230 jobs at Volex, an electronics company in Castlebar, Co Mayo, and 127 jobs at Fujitsu Isotec, another electronics firm in Dublin.

Mr Ahern attributed the December increase to a number of factors, including 1,000 people who were temporarily out of work in the south-east region. This is understood to be a reference to workers laid off temporarily by Waterford Crystal, which shut down over the Christmas holiday due to a fall-off in demand. The numbers signing on in the south-east in December was 20,911, compared with 19,320 a year previously and 20,017 in November.

The Minister also pointed out that new work permit arrangements, which became effective on January 2nd, were designed to ensure that employers offer first choice of available jobs to Irish or other European Economic Area nationals.

No seasonally adjusted figures were available because of the complications caused by the euro changeover. The Central Statistics Office said yesterday that "it is crudely estimated that there was little change in the seasonally adjusted series, and the standardised unemployment rate, between November and December".

The seasonally adjusted figure for November was 154,100.