Dole figures - Welcome fall hides the real tragedy

WE can take little solace from yesterday’s announcement that the number of people on the dole has fallen for the second month in a row.

On the face of it, the February Live Register figures from the Central Statistics Office may appear positive but the stark reality is that they contain a social time bomb of potentially catastrophic proportions.

At the heart of this crisis is a cancer of long-term unemployment on a scale this country has never seen before, caused by an economic calamity which is also fuelling a reluctant exodus of many of our brightest and best. Young people are leaving Ireland in droves to seek work in Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany and other countries around the globe. It is a dual tragedy because while long-term unemployed fear they may never work again, thousands of young emigrants know they will never return to our shores.