Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As we are told by members of the Government every second day, the national unemployment rate has dropped to 6.4%. The Government is slightly more sheepish about revealing the number of people on the live register in Wexford. Some 18% of the workforce in Wexford is on the live register, and that does not take into account the number of people in job activation programmes.

I have raised this issue with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on a number of occasions but she struggles to differentiate between the south east region doing well and the fact that Wexford is performing dismally and being left further and further behind. Given that the Minister has a more than 50-50 chance of being the next Taoiseach, is there any chance we might get some joined up thinking, because Wexford is a seriously deprived area? It will require some all-round Government approach to change things.

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