Withdrawal by Dell sees spike in jobless rate

THE fallout from the Dell withdrawal from Limerick has resulted in a huge spike in jobless figures for the city and county since the closure announcement last January.

Latest Live Register figures published yesterday show that unemployment in Limerick continues to rise well above the national average.

Some 21,375 people are on the Live Register in Limerick city and county, an increase of 7,376 or 52.7% over the year. while the national average increase is 46.1%. Over 70%, or 15,092, are in Limerick City, and the city has experienced an increase of 5,048 over the year, up from 10,444.

Fine Gael deputy finance spokesman Kieran O’Donnell said: “I am demanding immediate Government intervention to deal with the situation now emerging in Limerick which is faring far worse than the picture nationally. Indeed, the monthly increase for Limerick overall is 3.26%, as against the national average increase over the past month of 2.4%.”

By any standard, he said Limerick now has a worsening jobs crisis on it’s hands.

Mr O’Donnell said: “This is all the more galling because this increase has happened against a backdrop of a complete failure by Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and the IDA to announce any new IDA-backed jobs for Limerick over the period. We are being forgotten by the Government. This is just not acceptable. It is now a year since the announcement by Dell of the closure of their manufacturing facility in Raheen and the resulting loss of thousands of indirect and direct jobs there. Yet there is no sign of any replacement industry, nor any major initiative from the government to replace the jobs.

“Furthermore, Denis Brosnan’s Mid-West Jobs Taskforce reported during the middle of the year, and came up with a comprehensive set of recommendations for stimulating employment here, which the Tánaiste is not resourcing. I will be bringing this up with the Tánaiste Mary Coughlan on the resumption of the Dáil.”

Meanwhile, Irish Rural Link (IRL), the national network campaigning for sustainable rural communities, said the CSO’s figures on rural and regional unemployment show that the largest percentage increases in December were in the mid-west and mid-east (Meath, Kildare, Wicklow) regions (both +3.2%) and the smallest was in the Dublin region (+1.8%).

In the year to December 2009 the unadjusted Live Register increased by 133,577 (+46.1%) overall, and while all regions showed annual increases the largest percentage increase was in the Mid-East region (+50.8%). In December the largest increase was in Leitrim (+4.2%).

Irish Rural Link chief executive Seamus Boland said: “The unemployment crisis will be most difficult to resolve in rural areas.”