SLOWDOWN: More than 33,000 jobs were lost in the past two years and 4,025 redundancies have been notified in January and February this year, the Tánaiste told the Dáil yesterday.

However, Ms Harney still believes economic growth will be between 4 per cent and 5 per cent this year.

She announced that she planned to bring proposals to Government next week about a comprehensive review of the statutory redundancy scheme. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment said the review, by a group representing employers, unions and relevant Government departments, would report within "the next couple of months".

Speaking during Dáil Questions, Ms Harney said the economic slowdown was the most severe since the oil crisis of 1973-1974. The Republic, however, was still the fastest-growing economy in Europe.

"To put it in context, about 1 per cent of the workforce was made redundant last year; in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we had redundancies at an annual rate of more than 2.5 per cent of the workforce."

She conceded that "we are losing too many jobs but, relatively speaking, we are not losing as many as we were losing a decade or so ago".

There were some 13,316 redundancies in 2000 and 19,828 last year.

Labour's spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, Mr Pat Rabbitte said, while the Tánaiste was quoting one or two economists on the issue of 5 per cent growth, others were predicting growth of 1.5 per cent.

"With job losses at a rate of almost 1,000 a week over four months, one does not have to be good at arithmetic to know what they would be in a full year if the trend were to continue," he said.

Mr Rabbitte said the job losses were affecting traditional industries and the "prospect of them being replaced is so slim that the picture is not a very happy one".

The Tánaiste expressed concern about the age profile of many of those losing their jobs. It was more difficult for older workers in regional locations to acquire a new set of skills, she said.