Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

Of course I welcome new jobs.

It is disingenuous to say otherwise. I welcome every job that is announced but the figures speak for themselves. There is no movement in the proportion of the population who are unemployed. Is it not a fact that our unemployment would be bordering on catastrophic were it not for the tens of thousands of people who leave the country every year? We would be facing a higher number in absolute and percentage terms were it not for forced emigration. The limited number of good news stories about foreign companies setting up here is outweighed by the collapse of the domestic economy. We heard further news today of companies going out of business and hundreds of people losing their jobs.

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