Michael Noonan’s record unemployment > Sinn Féin hits back at Fine Gael

Aengus Ó Snodaigh signs the pledge to reverse the minimum wage cut

UNEMPLOYMENT reached a then record figure when the last Fine Gael/Labour Government was in power, Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh reminded Fine Gael Finance spokesperson Michael Noonan’s in response claim that Sinn Féin economic policy would force young Irish people to leave the country.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh said:

First of all, our young people are already leaving the country in droves because of the disastrous politics of austerity which Fine Gael are committed to continuing.

Secondly, Michael Noonan was a minister in the 1982 to 1987 Fine Gael/Labour Coalition and for part of that time the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

During that period, unemployment reached a then record figure of 232,000.

Over 150,000 people left this state, over half of whom were third-level graduates.

That is the past which Michael Noonan and Fine Gael represent.

That is the future that a Fine Gael/Labour Coalition of Cuts represents.