North Tipperary Unemployment – Dole Queue Reaches New Lengths

North Tipperary had the highest percentage increase of people joining the Unemployment Register nationally in the month of June.  An additional 489 people signed on, representing an increase of over 8% on the figures for the month of May. Fine Gael Deputy Noel Coonan TD has again called on the Government to immediately adopt Fine Gael policies in order to halt this growing problem.

Deputy Coonan stated:

“North Tipperary fared worse than any other county last month. We had the highest percentage increase in the number of people joining the dole than in any other area of Ireland. There were 6,024 people on the dole in May. By the end of June an additional 489 had joined this list. Approx 207 joined the dole in Nenagh, 177 in Thurles and 105 in Roscrea. People under the age of 25 are being particularly badly affected. Almost 1,000 people in this age group joined the dole over the last two years in North Tipperary. This represents a 202% increase. CSO figures also show that over the last two years, a whopping 4,051 people have joined the dole in North Tipperary. In the same period, 1,657 more people signed on in Thurles, 1,647 in Nenagh and 747 in Roscrea. A growing number of national and international organisations have criticised Fianna Fáil’s approach recently and with due reason”.

The recent criticisms referred too by Deputy Coonan include:

• The IMF, which described Ireland as ‘the most overheated of all advanced economies’ and warned of the collapse in Irish exports, pointing the finger of blame firmly at  Brian Cowen
• The CSO‘s national quarterly accounts, which revealed a staggering 12% slump in Gross National Product
• The OECD, which warned that GDP will have fallen by 14% by 2010;

Deputy Coonan further stated that the Government must now adopt Fine Gael’s policies to restore competitiveness and stimulate consumer demand.

Fine Gael is calling for reductions in spending to allow cuts in VAT and employers’ PRSI, the abolition of the Travel Tax, the creation of a National Recovery Bank to restore credit lines to small business and home-buyers, and a plan to reduce Government-imposed costs on small business.