Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Rather than go through the figures for average annual level of industrial employment for each year between 1998 and 2002, I will give the Deputy the figures I know he will want to comment on. In 1998, the figure was 257,900, and the latest provisional figure at December 2003 was 244,100. That is a job reduction of 13,000 or so. In each of those years from 1998, the figure was falling by about 2,000 or so.

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