A concerted effort to retain jobs in the south-east has been called for by a trade union official "alarmed" at rising unemployment in Waterford and Wexford.
SIPTU regional secretary Mr Mike Jennings is the latest observer to challenge the widely-held view that the south-east, unlike recognised disadvantaged regions - the Border, midlands and west - is riding high on the economic boom.
The reality, he says, is that several hundred of SIPTU's Waterford branch members lost their jobs due to company closures and rationalisations last year. Last month's live register figures for Waterford recorded an increase of 401 to 5,699, compared to November. In Wexford, the number rose by 202 to 5,938.
While lobbyists for the south-east have long since claimed the region is neglected, Mr Jennings says there is an increasing danger of its problems being overlooked now that it has been subsumed into the much larger southern and eastern region for EU funding.
"You have the BMW (Border, midlands, west) region which, in the minds of the public, is regarded as the disadvantaged area of Ireland, with unemployment and poverty and all sort of below-par social indicators," he says.
"By implication the public has got this notion that the southern and eastern region must be by definition a wealthy region and that's not the case. In objective terms the whole region isn't wealthy, and within it there are huge subregional disparities. Waterford and Wexford particularly stand out as having pretty chronic unemployment problems."
A delegation from SIPTU's south-east regional executive is to meet representatives of both the South East Regional Authority and the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly "to impress on them both the need to look at where the disadvantages occur within the region".
Mr Jennings claims there is so much talk of the Celtic Tiger that complacency has developed about the need to retain existing jobs. Since 1998, he points out, 690 members of SIPTU's Waterford branch have seen their jobs disappear.
These include 275 jobs lost with the closure of the Luxottica plant; 100 jobs recently lost at Tech Industries and the 100 staff put out of work by the voluntary liquidation of Celtic Seafoods.
"We're getting reports from our officials that they don't feel that the IDA and other State agencies are paying anything like the attention they should to assist companies to preserve jobs. There's a complacency here which amounts to people saying, `ah well, the economy is booming, everybody will be fixed up, so what's the panic?' " said Mr Jennings.
"I don't want to be over-critical of State agencies but we would like to see a bit of evidence that their commitment to job retention is not a thing of the past, and that we realise that preserving jobs is just as important as creating them." He also questions the quality of the jobs which are replacing those in traditional industries, citing in particular call centres as an example of low-paid work with little security.
Mr Jennings's criticisms are rejected by Mr Pat Loftus, the IDA's south-east regional manager, who says the agency has a very active programme of working with its existing base of overseas companies to assist them in upgrading their operations. Companies already operating in Ireland continue to account for almost half of the new projects approved by the IDA each year, he points out.
He adds that a number of call centres do pay high wages, and it's a sector which offers good prospects of promotion and the chance to increase salaries. The IDA, says Mr Loftus, does try to secure quality employment and has an internal target of attracting a certain percentage of jobs paying more than £25,000 a year.
None of which alters the fact that the south-east as a region needs to organise itself better to attract more of the high-tech jobs from which other areas are benefiting. Mr Jennings, who represents 34,000 SIPTU members in both the midlands and south-east, says the west has lobbied effectively on its own behalf for generations.
"The south-east has failed as a region to get recognition for its needs and requirements. I think the quality of political representation has something to do with it. We don't have forceful and dynamic people who are prepared to go out there and bang the table on behalf of the region. And there isn't that sense of loyalty and dedication to the region that you get elsewhere."
