Two-thirds of young men jobless in Limerick

Up to two-thirds of young men are now out of work in some of the country’s main urban centres, adding to the growing bill for social welfare payments and threatening the country’s recovery.

Young, largely unskilled men are the hardest hit and in places like Limerick two-thirds of youths aged 16 to 24 are neither at work, in training or education.

The spiral of unemployment in the country’s towns and cities is in danger of creating massive social problems for the future and a lost generation.