Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While every job created is a welcome step not least for the person who gets into employment, the Government bandies about employment figures which are simply not true. Since the Taoiseach took over, 47,100 new net jobs have been created. If we take the figures in the west, there has been a marked fall in the numbers in the labour force of just over 7% year on year. That is because 500,000 citizens have emigrated. Even in Dublin, where employment prospects are better, the number of men and women on the live register in Tallaght, which was in the news over the weekend, is almost the same as in the whole of Limerick city. Has the committee considered regionally-based employment targets and does it have any plan to tackle high unemployment in impoverished urban areas? Has it looked at employment in rural Ireland?

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