UNEMPLOYMENT ROSE more than expected in May, with the Live Register of jobseekers’ benefit claimants swelling by 6,600 people.
The increase, which took the rate of unemployment in Ireland to 13.7 per cent, was described as “disappointing” by business group Ibec, while the Opposition said the rise was “devastating” and a further indication that the Government had failed to tackle the crisis.
However, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Batt O’Keeffe accused Fine Gael of “trading politically on the anxieties of workers”.
Responding to comments by Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar, Mr O’Keeffe agreed the increase in Live Register claimants to 439,100 people was disappointing, but said the rise in May was “relatively modest” and had followed two months of stabilisation.
“In another typical bout of hyperbole, the party’s enterprise spokesman uses the plight of unemployed workers as political leverage in the race for the convenient soundbite,” said Mr O’Keeffe.
Mr Varadkar had earlier said the rise in claimants in May was “a truly appalling situation” and blamed it on a lack of Government action.
“The Government has spent the last month lying about its employment strategy and spinning against Opposition parties instead of taking action to stem the jobs haemorrhage. It’s fair to say that the lack of any jobs strategy at Government level can be linked to this dismal surge in the Live Register.”
In his counter-attack, Mr O’Keeffe said most of Fine Gael’s “so-called NewERA jobs strategy” was “an unabashed rehash of Government policy”. He added that the Government had taken steps to protect and grow employment.
Later yesterday afternoon, Fine Gael’s labour affairs and small business spokesman Damien English said Mr O’Keeffe and his advisers would “do better to tackle the jobs crisis that launching purely political attacks” on the Opposition. “There are more people out of work this week than at any time in Irish history. Yet Enterprise Minister Batt O’Keeffe is more interested in spending his time attacking Fine Gael than sorting out the unemployment crisis,” Mr English said.
Labour Party enterprise spokesman Willie Penrose said the Government had run out of ideas.
“While they are perfectly happy to pump billion after billion into zombie banks, they are doing virtually nothing to invest in job creation,” he said, adding that the figures did not even take into account recent job losses in companies such as Pfizer and Covidien.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) said Ireland was paying “too high a price” for bailing out the banks.
“The price of the bailout is too high – in financial, economic and social terms,” said ICTU economic adviser Paul Sweeney.
Economists said the number of people who signed on in May was higher than they had expected.
Separate data published by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation showed that there were 5,032 redundancies under the department’s redundancy scheme during May. This takes the number of redundancies for the year to date to 28,587, down 20 per cent on last year.
