10,000 MORE ON THE DOLE...
Saturday, July 5, 2008 at 12:04PM I see that the seasonally-adjusted Irish Live Register figure for persons claiming unemployment benefit had increased by over 10,000 in the past month. Fine Gael enterprise, trade and employment spokesman Leo Varadkar said yesterday was a “black Friday” for workers as the CSO revealed the biggest-ever increase in the Live Register in June.
“Since the last election, at least 54,000 people have lost their jobs. The Live Register has risen by a third, and the overall unemployment rate is now creeping back up to 6 per cent.” Describing the Live Register increase as “truly shocking”, Labour spokesman Willie Penrose said it “caps a week of terrible economic news for the Government and the Irish people”.
Penrose is right - the recession is savaging the celtic tiger and the government is in denial if it thinks anything less. However all governments tend to behave like this. In a benign economic climate, they sit back and claim credit for it. Then, when the gales of recession start to blow, it is nothing to do with them whatsoever. Politicians - don'tcha just love them?
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Reader Comments (2)
There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with a crisis. In the early 80s Irish governments made some cowardly decisions and the crisis got worse.
Let's see if they have learned anything.
"Politicians - don'tcha just love them?"
No David I certainly do not! The following "fable" might explain why:
Recession? Never. This Fabulous Fable tells me why!
When winter comes, a shivering Labour party member calls a press conference and demands to know why the Fianna Fáil land developer should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
RTE-1 show up and provide pictures of the shivering Labour lad next to a film of the well clothed FF dandy in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
Ireland is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor member of the Party which provided the country with the muscle to attain such an enormous level of prosperity is allowed to suffer so?
The Taoiseach and Tánaiste make a special guest appearance on the RTE-1 Evening News and tell a concerned Bryan Dobson that they will do everything they can for the poverty stricken lad who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the "Era of Greed" (aka Celtic Tiger). Further, Mary Harney exclaims in a weepy interview with Joe Duffy of Liveline that the Fianna Fáil developer has gotten rich off the "back of the Labour party member," and calls for an immediate tax hike on the developer to make him pay his "fair share."
The developer sues in the high court, but loses the case.
The story ends as we see the Labour party lad finishing up the last bits of the developer’s food while he lives comfortably, rent free, in a County Council house. The developer has disappeared in the bogs of the midlands. And on RTE they are showing Eamon Gilmore standing before a wildly applauding, reflective-vest and hard-hat wearing audience announcing that a new era of "Fairness" has dawned in Ireland.