AN ESTIMATED 300 people marched through the centre of Dublin at the weekend calling on the Government to tackle unemployment and stem the flow of young people emigrating from Ireland.
Saturday’s Reclaim the City festival focused on unemployment figures and criticised the Government over what organisers claim has been an inadequate solution to a “demoralising situation for Ireland’s youth”.
Organised by the Right To Work Campaign, the festival began with a protest march through the city to the Central Bank in Temple Bar, where speakers and a band entertained the crowd.
Protesters waved anti-Government placards and chanted slogans denouncing cutbacks. “We want jobs, not Anglo bailouts,” read some of the slogans.
Cllr Richard Boyd-Barrett of People Before Profit told marchers there was huge anger among young people. He called on the Government to stem the tide of emigration.
Coupled with a lack of jobs and high emigration rates was a perceived lack of action from the Government, said Mr Boyd-Barrett.
Other speakers at the event included Sinn Féin’s Cllr Dessie Ellis, who called for “greater action to be taken that will get people off dole queues and back into the workforce.”
James Toole, one of the festival organisers, said the event was aimed at highlighting the situation facing a “huge number of young Irish people” who were being forced to emigrate to find work.
“We’re aiming to highlight the issue facing a large number of 18-24-year-olds in the country that are finding themselves in this demoralising situation of having no prospects of working in the near future.”
The latest figures show almost 92,000 people under the age of 25 are unemployed, while an estimated 70,000 young people have emigrated from Ireland in the last year.