Willie Penrose, local TD and Labour spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Employment this week spoke out against the ‘governments’ tactics in tackling the current economic crisis.
He stated that rather than focusing on the negative state of the Exchequer figures, Fiannna Fail and the Greens should redirect their attention to creating new jobs and opportunities for the “absolutely staggering” number of people who find themselves unemployed.
“The Government has become fixated on addressing the Exchequer figures” he says, but “our perilous public finances are not the problem, they are a consequence of the fact that we are haemorrhaging jobs at a rate of 1,500 a day.
“Each and every lost job costs the exchequer €20,000 a year.”
According to penrose, “that is the problem that the Government should be addressing, because more jobs mean more taxes coming in to the public coffers. “
Despite the alarming figures, “We should never lose sight of the fact that behind the statistics, are people and families who now face economic uncertainty the likes of which we have not seen for decades,” he said.
The present Government should put increasing effort into providing new educational and retraining opportunities to ensure that the talents and skills of these people are not lost to the Irish economy.”
