TOLL OF THE DOLE

As ministers boast of boom in jobs... rural Ireland jobless still up at 15%

WHILE Government ministers boast of falling unemployment figures, the statistics are hiding an alarming jobless rate that continues throughout rural Ireland.

An investigation by the Irish Mail on Sunday into Live Register and Census data – spanning the last 10 years – shows the huge disparity between city and country when it comes to employment.

In fact, our urban areas are nearing pre-crisis levels of employment, and seem to be making all the gains that came out of years of economic sacrifice.

The Live Register includes part-time workers, casual and seasonal workers, as well as those on jobseeker’s benefit and allowance, and is taken as a key indicator of unemployment.

And the data shows that Co. Donegal has an alarmingly high number of unemployed at 16.27%, while Longford has 14.94%, Wexford has 14.83%, Louth 14.58% and Westmeath 14.24%. Those are the counties with the highest dole rates in the country. Meanwhile, the major urban districts of Cork, Kilkenny, Galway and Dublin and the commuter county of Meath were the least affected by the crash. All of them are within 3% of their 2008 rates.

Yet, as recently as April 4, Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor was speaking about how ‘very gratifying’ it was that the monthly unemployment rate had fallen to 6.4%. And addressing the same figures, on the same day, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar declared: ‘It’s particularly encouraging that we are already closing in on our 2020 target of 6% unemployment.’ Yet, as this investigation reveals, huge swathes of the country have almost triple that number of people on the dole.

The highest rate of people on the dole during the last 10 years was recorded in Louth in 2012 at the height of the financial crisis, when almost one in four 18-64-year-olds (23.17%) were on the Live Register. Today, Louth still has one in seven (14.58%) adults on the dole, one of the worst rates in the country.

Since 2013, every county has seen reductions in dole rate year on year. However, some counties are recovering quicker than others.

Tipperary has been the slowest county to recover from the crash, with the percentage of 18-64-yearolds on the Live Register currently at 12.66%, more than double the 2008 rate of 6.06%. Nationally, almost one in 10 (9.46%) 18-64-yearolds are on the Live Register – a jump from 2008 of 5.88%.

Meath had the lowest rate in 2008 (3.24%) and continues to have the lowest rate now (5.69%).

Westmeath has one of the worst dole rates in the country and was the second-worst-affected county in the turbulent last 10 years, going from a rate of 7.81% in 2008 to 14.24% now, almost double. Waterford is an outlier among Irish cities, with a consistently high dole rate over the last 10 years.

In 2012, its rate peaked at an astonishing 20.71%, or one in five people, but that has been reduced to 13.96% now, one in seven. The percentage of women on the Live Register has increased by 5.75% over the 10 years examined, with the percentage of women over 25 on the register up by 8.25%.

The biggest demographic by far on the Live Register is men over 25, accounting for 51.5%. This has remained largely consistent over the 10 years. The number of men under 25 on the register dropped sharply over the last 10 years from 13.09% to a low 6.78% now.

This follows cuts by the last Fine Gael/Labour government to social welfare rates for people under 25.

Clare TD Michael Harty criticised the Government for failing to support rural Ireland, and he said ministers were mainly focused on the east coast.

He said: ‘What is inhibiting employment in rural Ireland is lack of infrastructure – broadband, phone coverage and transport. Small and medium-sized businesses simply can’t set up without having proper infrastructure available.

‘I don’t think much foreign direct investment is going to come to rural Ireland, so we need small and medium-sized businesses to be able to set up and run in rural Ireland.

‘When I was campaigning, I was struck by the number of people who wanted to return to their home county but couldn’t find a suitable job there with the same career progression.’

‘Government is mainly focused on the east coast’ ‘Not much foreign investment here’