Unemployment crisis - We need coherent policies

The Government set up a task force in January of this year to tackle unemployment. It consists of officials from a number of Government departments, along with nominees from various elements of the social partnership.

But relations between the Government and the unions have been so strained over tackling public sector pay that the task force has only met once. Members of the task force were essentially asked to do one job and while they have been dithering, thousands have lost their jobs. This is an outrage.

Instead of dithering itself, the Government should have established a new task force with people committed to trying to do something about growing unemployment. In September the Taoiseach told the Dáil in a written reply that future meetings of the task force would be convened “as necessary”.