PRESSURE MOUNTED on the Government as Opposition parties reacted angrily to news that the seasonally-adjusted Live Register figure for persons claiming unemployment benefit had increased by over 10,000 in the past month.
Government sources insist the scale of the economic downturn is being exaggerated. However, it has emerged that cost-saving measures planned for the start of next year are set to be brought forward.
Fine Gael enterprise, trade and employment spokesman Leo Varadkar said yesterday was a “black Friday” for workers as the CSO revealed the biggest-ever increase in the Live Register in June.
“Since the last election, at least 54,000 people have lost their jobs. The Live Register has risen by a third, and the overall unemployment rate is now creeping back up to 6 per cent.”
Describing the Live Register increase as “truly shocking”, Labour spokesman Willie Penrose said it “caps a week of terrible economic news for the Government and the Irish people”.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) announced that the Live Register total for June was 220,811, giving a seasonally-adjusted figure of 217,400. This compared with 201,756 in May, or 207,300 seasonally-adjusted. The figures for June 2007 were 166,363, seasonally-adjusted to 163,000.
Between May and June there was a rise of 19,055 claimants, or 10,100 seasonally-adjusted, and the year from June 2007 to June 2008 showed a rise of 54,448 or 54,400 seasonally-adjusted.
The standardised unemployment rate in June was 5.7 per cent as against 4.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2008. The Live Register is not strictly a measure of unemployment as it includes part-time, seasonal and casual workers.
With the Cabinet meeting next Tuesday to finalise its response to the worsening economic situation, it is expected that cost-saving measures in public service spending will be brought into force immediately.
In his budget speech last December, then finance minister and now Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced that the Government had agreed to “an efficiency review of all administrative spending across the whole public service”. As a result, all departments were obliged to provide the Department of Finance by March 1st with “specific proposals to maximise administrative savings”.
It was originally envisaged that these savings would be used to reduce “the cost of [the] existing level of services for 2009”, but Government sources have indicated this has been brought forward to the present.
Particular attention was paid to possible inefficiencies due to what an addendum to Mr Cowen’s speech termed the “multiplicity” of boards and agencies operating under the auspices of the various departments.
Another area under scrutiny was duplication of services in different agencies with a view to reduce the number of human resources managers, technology advisers and accountancy or payroll staff by altering the responsibilities in these positions to cover a range of bodies.
It is also likely that efficiency measures will be announced in relation to the purchase of “consumables”. Savings could be made by centralised purchasing of items such as stationery and computers instead of individual bodies making purchases.
Government sources said every effort would be made to minimise the impact of cost-saving measures on “front-line services” eg, the number of teachers, nurses and gardaí.
FF faces spectre of boom-to-bust economic legacy, Stephen Collins, page 13; Editorial comment: page 15
