Improving education is the key - Unemployment rate falls

IRELAND’S unemployment rate has fallen below 10% for the first time since our 2008 economic implosion — a crash which former Central Bank governor John Hurley told the banking inquiry yesterday was not anticipated by the Government, nor was its severity.

Data published by the Central Statistics Office yesterday shows that 12,500 jobs were created in the first three months of the year and that the unemployment rate dropped to 9.9% in the first quarter from 10.4% in the final three months of last year. Unemployment decreased by 45,300, or 17.5%, in the year to March, bringing the total number of people unemployed to 212,800. This is the 11th quarter in succession where unemployment has declined on an annual basis.

These are entirely positive figures and are to be celebrated joyfully and welcomed with considerable relief. It is not so very long ago that such a prospect seemed very remote and almost impossible to imagine.