Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I was interested to hear the Taoiseach say that unemployment was rising but rising more slowly. That is the equivalent of saying we are sinking but sinking more slowly. We are sinking nevertheless. A total of 413,000 people out of work is a record, and the number has risen by about 200,000 since this time last year. We hear a lot of talk these days about cuts in public spending and various budgetary measures; we have had two budgets already this year. The cost of the extra unemployment can be assumed to be about €20,000 per job if we consider lost taxes and social welfare payments. All the measures taken in the April budget and the previous October budget - the income levies, pension levies and cuts in spending programmes - have been wiped out by the increase in unemployment. We are talking about an additional cost of around €4 billion to the public purse as a result of that increase in unemployment, not to speak of the personal loss suffered by each individual who has lost his or her job in terms of lost income, lost hope and so on.

I now turn to what is being done about it. If the Taoiseach is saying unemployment is rising more slowly, does he have an estimate of what it will be at the end of this year? I recall that he made a speech prior to the local and European elections in which he told the country he expected that rapid growth would return in 2010-----

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