FF braced for poll hit as jobless top 400,000
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Saturday June 06 2009
TAOISEACH Brian Cowen is braced for a massive voter backlash after dole queues smashed the 400,000 mark for the first time yesterday.
Angry voters went to the polls with an expert prediction the economy will take five years to recover ringing in their ears.
Turnout in the local, European and by-elections was expected to be more than 55pc across the country.
The Government is preparing to bear the brunt of widespread public disillusionment as new figures confirmed the number of people signing on the Live Register has now doubled in the space of just 12 months.
Live Register figures for May were described as "truly shocking", with the seasonally adjusted figure exceeding 400,000 for the first time ever. The unemployment level, once among the lowest in the 16-member eurozone, is now the second highest at 11.8pc, with only Spain (18.1pc) in deeper difficulties.
But analysts said the pace of increase of unemployment claimants slowed again in May.
The monthly rise was 13,500 seasonally adjusted -- the smallest since last September -- compared to increases of 33,000 extra people on the dole last January, 26,700 extra last February, 20,000 extra last March and 15,800 extra last April.
A spokeswoman for Tanaiste Mary Coughlan said the jobless figures were "very regrettable".
Yesterday's triple elections took place against the backdrop of a wave of critical economic outlooks. The Nobel-prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, who recently wrote a newspaper column titled 'Erin go broke', predicted it would take five years of a "hard slog" for the Irish economy to recover.
And former Attorney General and EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland warned the country must continue to take "harsh decisions" to get itself out of the economic crisis -- and not try and piggyback on a global recovery.
Mr Krugman said Ireland must "suffer" its way through a period of "long, slow, grinding deflation" and it will be five years before growth matches that of the euro region.
Mr Krugman created huge controversy last month when he wrote about the demise of Ireland Inc in his 'New York Times' column. And Mr Sutherland said that while the world economy's decline has slowed recently, he sees no sign of a "dramatic" global turnaround.
"I think we should assume the global economy will not bring us out. We can't look at somebody else to take us out [of the recession]," he said.
The economic downturn, dry weather and voters having their say in more than one election were being cited as the reasons for the relatively healthy turnout yesterday.
The final percentage figure is expected to reach the mid 50s, but the turnout among voters in the two by-election areas in Dublin is likely to be higher than the national average.
Bookies paid out last night on 10 of the 12 European constituency seats.
Paddy Power paid out on Gay Mitchell and Proinsias De Rossa in Dublin; Liam Aylward, Nessa Childers and Mairead McGuinness in Ireland East; Sean Kelly and Brian Crowley in Ireland South; and Pat The Cope Gallagher, Marian Harkin and Jim Higgins in Ireland North-West.
- Michael Brennan, Aidan O'Connor and Fionnan Sheahan
