Our economic crisis - Unity is now essential

WHAT a dispiriting, challenging and worrying week it’s been.

On Thursday the long-feared news about Dell was confirmed; 1,900 life-blood jobs were “migrating” to Poland and anything up to 8,000 downstream jobs are in jeopardy. Clouds are gathering too over the Dell marketing and support jobs in Dublin.

Earlier in the week headlines focussed on Waterford Crystal, Tara Mines or Chartbusters. The loss of a major contract put SR Technics’ 1,200 workers at Dublin airport in the firing line yesterday.

Many other jobs — possibly hundreds — are lost every day in smaller businesses. Eight here, three there, each hugely important to those involved.

The default response has been well aired this week. We are told that “we must concentrate on high-end, high-value, high-pay jobs, that is where our future lies”. This line would be comforting if it was explained how even these enviable jobs can be withheld from equally talented and equally well-trained people working in lower-cost economies.

The velocity of this tsunami was confirmed yesterday when once-in-a-lifetime unemployment figures were published. Shocking as they were, Fás predicts worse to come, suggesting unemployment will pass 12% this year. The Live Register saw an unadjusted increase of 120,987 or 71% in the year to December 2008 — the biggest 12-month increase since records began 42 years ago. The number signing onto the Live Register increased by 16,300 to 293,500 in December.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen insists that the social partnership formula has won the right to be consulted in how this great challenge is confronted.

He may be right but those partners must accept that there is far, far more than sectional interest at stake here. They, no matter who they represent, must recognise the need for great urgency and innovation. The time for arguing and talking has passed. It is a time for unity, determination and, despite everything, optimism.