Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

On the question of unemployment, of course one is very concerned and I am very concerned about the fact that unemployment has been rising so fast. It is up to 10.4% as of the February figure. We had unemployment back in the 1980s of more than 17%, but I do not want to make a debating point of that. Thankfully, there are still approximately 1.8 million people working in this economy.

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