Dingle goes it alone to make own jobs

DINGLE people are the most independent in the country - almost 27% of the town’s workforce are self- employed, compared to a national average of 16.9%.

The least independent workforce is in Portrane, Co Dublin, with just 7.3% being employers or self-employed followed by Kildare town with just 7.5% of its entire 2,701 workforce self-employed, according to figures released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office.

Dingle restaurateur John Moriarty said the reason why 238 of the 895 people employed in the town are self-employed is clear “If Dingle people don’t go out and create their own jobs there’s no one else to do it for them. The only jobs created here are by ordinary people. It’s a long, long time since any kind of factory opened here,” he said.

Mr Moriarty, who runs Lord Bakers restaurant on Dingle’s Main Street, said that ever since John Doyle opened Doyle’s seafood restaurant in Dingle in the mid-1970s, entrepreneurs have carved out tourism related services to create jobs for themselves and others in Dingle.

“We have numerous award-winning restaurants, top class hotels and guest houses all serving a growing number of tourists who keep coming back to Dingle. The season here is getting longer every year and even at this time of year there are a lot of American tourists about. Americans seem to like Dingle at this time of year when it is quiet and the light is wonderful,” he said.

The coastal town of Carndonagh is second on the self-employed league with 26.9% of the workforce in that category, but the Donegal town also has the highest unemployment rate in the country with one in five workers unemployed.

Kinsale is third in the self- sufficiency league, where there are 357 people self- employed or employers out of a working population of 1,569, 22.8% of the Kinsale workforce is self-employed.

Coastal towns have an edge when it comes to self- sufficiency with Kenmare, 21.3%, self-employed and Dunmore East, 21.3%, ranking fourth and fifth.

At the other end of the scale there are 12 centres of population where those in the self-employed category comprise less than 10% of the workforce: Balbriggan 9.9%, Drogheda 9.7%, Limerick city 9.6%, Sallins 9.2%, Newbridge 9.2%, Sligo 9.2%, Swords 9%, Waterford city 8.9%, Maynooth 8.5%, Shannon 8.1% and Kildare 7.5%. In the greater Dublin area 11% are self-employed and in Cork city the figure is 11.2%.