The Workers’ Party have described the latest unemployment statistics as a grave indicator of an economy entering recession and a personal crisis for each of the 207,000 people who are unemployed.

Workers Party Waterford councillor Davy Walsh said that the May figure, which shows a 47,000 increase in a 12 month period and the highest ever recorded annual increase in unemployment, is in effect an’ F level’ on the government’s Report Card one year after the general election.

Cllr. Walsh said that the government had failed workers utterly and that the figures would be much worse were it not for the thousands of Eastern Europeans who were working here 12 months ago but have now gone back home because their jobs here are gone.

“By and large this increase in unemployment has not received the public attention it deserves.  During the past 15 years unemployment has gone off the national radar but now it is very much an issue once again and action is required urgently to address the crisis”, said Davy Walsh.

“Once again we are seeing flagship industries closing down, down-sizing or under threat.  This is already a crisis, it needs to be tackled now before we are plunged to the depths which unemployment reached in the 1980s”, Cllr. Walsh said.