LABOUR SPOKESMAN on enterprise, trade and employment Willie Penrose predicted that 500,000 people would be unemployed by the end of the year.

“That is, quite frankly, an appalling vista.

“It is an economic and social calamity,” he added.

“To have that many people without work, with all the human cost that goes with it.’’ He was speaking during a debate on a Labour-Sinn Féin Private Members’ motion calling for policy initiatives for job creation.

Mr Penrose said at a time when the banks should be lending to support existing and new businesses, they were unwilling to do so.

It should not be forgotten, he added, that about 250,000 small businesses provided up to 750,000 jobs and also represented the backbone of the infrastructural fabric of rural villages and towns.

Mr Penrose said Government money invested in the banks was not filtering down to small businesses which were crucial to the economic wellbeing of the country, and to many places especially in rural Ireland.

Sinn Féin spokesman Arthur Morgan accused Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan of being “almost oblivious’’ to the depth of the jobs crisis.

“I understand the pressures facing small family enterprises. Good employers who want to create employment in their local community, but whose backs are against the wall due to a lack of access to credit and the high cost of doing business,’’ he added.

Ms Coughlan outlined Government action to create jobs and noted that while the Live Register was continuing to rise, the monthly rate of increase had been abating since February.

“In addition, despite the major downturn in our economy, last month over 16,500 people left the Live Register because they found work,’’ she added.

She said the Government was discussing with the social partners new approaches to keeping people in employment who were in danger of losing their jobs.