More than 5,000 people in Galway county have signed on to the Live Register since October 2007 according to new reports released last week by the Central Statistics Office (CSO ).
As of last month, 14,213 people had signed on the Live Register in Galway county according to the CSO, an increase of 5,131 people since October of last year, and close to 500 more than September 2008.
The worst suffering areas in the county were Loughrea, Tuam, Ballinasloe, and Galway city.
Although the hardest hit in the last year with an increase of 53 per cent signing on, Galway city actually only saw a 7 per cent increase between September and October 2008, one of the lowest in the country. Loughrea saw a sign on increase of 29 per cent from September and a 10 per cent increase in the last year, Tuam came in slightly higher over with a 15 per cent since 2007 and a 28 per cent increase between September and October. Gort came in the lowest with only a six per cent increase in signing on in the last 12 months.
On Thursday the Department of Enterprise and Employment released figures showing that there were more than 1,800 redundancies in Galway since the beginning of 2008. Business groups across the country, particularly small businesses, called on the Government to intervene to ensure that the banks and building societies pass on cuts in European interest rates which were announced last week, as well as putting a freeze on proposed ESB and Bord Gais increases.
