Warning over economic blackspots

There are nearly 100 economic blackspots across the country with unemployment levels which are four times higher than the national average, it was claimed today.

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) said the Government policies for these areas were inadequate and insufficient.

Policy co-ordinator June Tinsley said the ‘one size fits all’ approach needed to be abandoned in favour of targeted initiatives.

She cited the job recruitment project set up between the Northside Partnership and Tesco for the Clare Hall supermarket on the Malahide Road. More than 80 long term unemployed people took up training places and 57 were given jobs in the Tesco store as a result.

“Such initiatives need to be funded to ensure that people in these employment blackspots have the opportunity to access the labour market,” she said.

According to the Central Statistics Office, there are more than 88 unemployment blackspots across the country where the average unemployment rate is above 24%. The worst blackspots are in Knocknalower and An Gheat Mhor Theas in North Mayo, which have employment rates of 40% and 37% respectively. The highest number of blackspots were in Donegal followed by Dublin, Limerick and Cork.

Ms Tinsely said it was demoralising and disheartening for people in unemployment blackspots to continuously hear that Ireland has attained full employment.

“That’s because in their lives, that has not been the case. They have not gained from the prosperity Ireland has experienced.”

She said there were a number of reasons for the continued existence of unemployment blackspots, including:

:: discrimination by employers on the basis of address

:: a lack of investment and poor planning which leads to poor housing, high unemployment, land poor health status

:: a lack of public transport in rural areas for people to travel to work

:: The decline of agriculture as source of full time employment for many farmers.