It’s not looking good for Ireland.
Today, as 2.8 million people cast their vote in the Lisbon Treaty (something I admittedly never want to hear of again – its prominence on the news agenda has made me completely desensitised to it), some 200,000 people are involved in something new.
This something new would seem quite foreign to those who became accustomed to the Eire that flourished on the back of the Celtic Tiger; a country where Mercedes’ seemed omnipresent, eating out was a regular affair and people had surplus cash to fritter away without a second thought. Well, we were led to believe that most people had it this good.
Now, the most well-trodden floors in the country belong to the local dole office, not L’Ecrivain.
‘Unemployment crisis as 200,000 on dole’ was the headline I gave this story on Wednesday. I’m not one to use the word crisis liberally – it’s as bad as horror and tragedy if used too much – it loses all meaning.
But the statistics seem to support the idea that fresh worries for the country’s unemployed are justified, as 47,746 more people signed on to the dole last month than at the same time last year.
47,746.
Northern Ireland is bucking the trend with a jobless percentage below the UK average, while Ireland is reportedly one of two countries in the EU where unemployment has risen in the last year. The other 25 seem to be able to maintain a plateau or improve upon their jobless rates.
Tánaiste and Employment Minister Mary Coughlan has inherited this burden and it is one she would be wise to address in the Dáil as soon as possible.
Because it seems that all this talk of the Lisbon Treaty has clouded the agenda. Surely the leaders of this country should be scrambling to find a solution and help those who want to be working to do so.
And I’m sure those who have cruelly suffered the loss of their job would rather be queuing for the ATM.
