29 July 1999 Edition
Full employment should be the goal
``A full employment Ireland is now attainable.'' This was the analysis from the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) General Secretary Mike Allen after the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published new labour force figures that show one measure of unemployment dipping below 100,000 for the first time.
The Quarterly National Household Survey, one of the four methods used by the Irish government to measure unemployment, registered a jobless figure of 95,000. The Live Register for the same month of the survey shows 207,600 people claiming social welfare entitlements.
These differences stem from different definitions of unemployment but even in the Labour Force Survey there are over 165,000 people who want to work but cannot get it.
Allen calls on the government to ensure that ``all the people of Ireland benefit from the current economic boom, they must set real targets to eradicate poverty, and not simply leave the fate of thousands of citizens to the luck of the market''.
Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin highlighted the regional imbalance in the CSO figures. He said the figures show that ``the border region still has the highest unemployment rate of any of the eight regions into which the 26 Counties are divided''.
The border counties have an unemployment rate of 8.4% compared to a state-wide rate of 5.8%. O Caoláin said: ``There is a massive job still to be done in the border region to increase employment and general economic activity. Successive governments and the IDA have failed to bring inward investment to this region''.
O Caoláin called on the government to use the ``biggest budget surplus in its history'' to ``redress the imbalance which has existed for so long and which has left this region in the shadows''.
The Quarterly National Household Survey, one of the four methods used by the Irish government to measure unemployment, registered a jobless figure of 95,000. The Live Register for the same month of the survey shows 207,600 people claiming social welfare entitlements.
These differences stem from different definitions of unemployment but even in the Labour Force Survey there are over 165,000 people who want to work but cannot get it.
Allen calls on the government to ensure that ``all the people of Ireland benefit from the current economic boom, they must set real targets to eradicate poverty, and not simply leave the fate of thousands of citizens to the luck of the market''.
Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin highlighted the regional imbalance in the CSO figures. He said the figures show that ``the border region still has the highest unemployment rate of any of the eight regions into which the 26 Counties are divided''.
The border counties have an unemployment rate of 8.4% compared to a state-wide rate of 5.8%. O Caoláin said: ``There is a massive job still to be done in the border region to increase employment and general economic activity. Successive governments and the IDA have failed to bring inward investment to this region''.
O Caoláin called on the government to use the ``biggest budget surplus in its history'' to ``redress the imbalance which has existed for so long and which has left this region in the shadows''.