THE GOVERNMENT came under sustained attack from the Opposition yesterday following publication of the latest unemployment figures, which showed 436,936 people claimed the dole last month – a rise of 13,000 since December.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny claimed the real figure would be more than 500,000 “if the valve of emigration was not open”.
“A total of 60,000 young people under the age of 25 years have left the country,’’ Mr Kenny said.
Labour leader Eamonn Gilmore accused Mr Cowen of “abracadabra economics’’, pointing out that one in every three men, aged between 21 and 24 years, is now drawing the dole in the Republic.
Mr Cowen insisted the Government was seeking to protect jobs through improving the competitiveness of the economy. He said the only way to protect jobs and create new ones was for the country to regain its competitive edge.
“The idea that the Government is not involved in seeking to protect jobs is a nonsense. By taking the decisions we have taken and by improving competitiveness in the economy by 7 per cent per unit labour cost compared to our competitors, we are seeking to protect the 1.85 million jobs in the economy,” said Mr Cowen. He said the Government’s approach had been recognised at home and abroad as the right way to deal with the situation.
Mr Cowen also rejected the claim that Ireland had one of the worst jobs problems in the EU. He pointed out that the unemployment rate in January had risen to 12.7 per cent, from 12.5 per cent in December, while the current unemployment rate in Spain was 19 per cent.
When seasonally adjusted, the figures show an additional 5,800 signing on. Some of the overall figure is due to post-Christmas layoffs.
Mr Kenny described the figures as devastating. “They are a litany of despair from a Government that has failed to put any plan or strategy in place to deal with this situation.”
He said that when taken in tandem with the exchequer returns, which showed that tax revenues were continuing to fall, the figures were an indictment of the Coalition’s policy.
Mr Gilmore claimed that, since the budget, the Coalition had been basking in praise they had received from some of the right-wing economists embedded with them, while there was no action on the jobs front.
Dublin Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the jobless figures would be much higher if so many people had not left the country.
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed said the endless focus on the banking and public finance crisis has been detrimental to unemployed people who were paying the ultimate price for the recession.